1
COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister! | |
| Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv’d, whatever occurs; | |
| That is nothing, that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any number of failures, | |
| Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness, | |
| Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes. | 5 |
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| Revolt! and still revolt! revolt! | |
| What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents, and all the islands and archipelagos of the sea; | |
| What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement, | |
| Waiting patiently, waiting its time. | |
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| (Not songs of loyalty alone are these, | 10 |
| But songs of insurrection also; | |
| For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel, the world over, | |
| And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him, | |
| And stakes his life, to be lost at any moment.) | |
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2
Revolt! and the downfall of tyrants! | 15 |
| The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and retreat, | |
| The infidel triumphs—or supposes he triumphs, | |
| Then the prison, scaffold, garrote, hand-cuffs, iron necklace and anklet, lead-balls, do their work, | |
| The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres, | |
| The great speakers and writers are exiled—they lie sick in distant lands, | 20 |
| The cause is asleep—the strongest throats are still, choked with their own blood, | |
| The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet; | |
| —But for all this, liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel enter’d into full possession. | |
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| When liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go, | |
| It waits for all the rest to go—it is the last. | 25 |
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| When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs, | |
| And when all life, and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth, | |
| Then only shall liberty, or the idea of liberty, be discharged from that part of the earth, | |
| And the infidel come into full possession. | |
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3
Then courage! European revolter! revoltress! | 30 |
| For, till all ceases, neither must you cease. | |
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| I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself, nor what anything is for,) | |
| But I will search carefully for it even in being foil’d, | |
| In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment—for they too are great. | |
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| Revolt! and the bullet for tyrants! | 35 |
| Did we think victory great? | |
| So it is—But now it seems to me, when it cannot be help’d, that defeat is great, | |
| And that death and dismay are great. | |
