Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.
172. Europe, the 72d and 73d years of These States
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Like lightning it le’pt forth, half startled at itself,
Its feet upon the ashes and the rags—its hands tight to the throats of kings.
O aching close of exiled patriots’ lives!
O many a sicken’d heart!
Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.
Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,
For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity the poor man’s wages,
For many a promise sworn by royal lips, and broken, and laugh’d at in the breaking,
Then in their power, not for all these, did the blows strike revenge, or the heads of the nobles fall;
The People scorn’d the ferocity of kings.
But the sweetness of mercy brew’d bitter destruction, and the frighten’d monarchs come back;
Each comes in state, with his train—hangman, priest, tax-gatherer,
Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.
Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front and form, in scarlet folds,
Whose face and eyes none may see,
Out of its robes only this—the red robes, lifted by the arm,
One finger, crook’d, pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake appears.
Meanwhile, corpses lie in new-made graves—bloody corpses of young men;
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud,
And all these things bear fruits—and they are good.
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets—those hearts pierc’d by the gray lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughter’d vitality.
They live in brothers, again ready to defy you!
They were purified by death—they were taught and exalted.
Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish.
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counseling, cautioning.
Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of you.
Nevertheless, be ready—be not weary of watching;
He will soon return—his messengers come anon.