1.
To get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early;
Here's a good place at the corner—I must stand and see the show.
2.
Clear the way there, Jonathan!
Way for the President's marshal! Way for the government cannon!
Way for the Federal foot and dragoons—and the apparitions copiously
tumbling.
I love to look on the stars and stripes—I hope the fifes will play "Yankee
Doodle,"
How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops!
Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town.
3.
A fog follows—antiques of the same come limping,
Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless.
Why this is indeed a show! It has called the dead out of the earth!
The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see!
Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!
Cocked hats of mothy mould! crutches made of mist!
Arms in slings! old men leaning on young men's shoulders!
What troubles you, Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare
gums?
Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for
firelocks, and level them?
If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President's
marshal;
If you groan such groans, you might baulk the government cannon.
For shame, old maniacs! Bring down those tossed arms, and let your white
hair be;
Here gape your great grandsons—their wives gaze at them from the windows,
See how well-dressed—see how orderly they conduct themselves.
Worse and worse! Can't you stand it? Are you retreating?
Is this hour with the living too dead for you?
Retreat then! Pell-mell!
To your graves! Back! back to the hills, old limpers!
I do not think you belong here, anyhow.
4.
But there is one thing that belongs here—shall I tell you what it is,
gentlemen of Boston?
I will whisper it to the Mayor—He shall send a committee to England;
They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal
vault—haste!
Dig out King George's coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box
up his bones for a journey;
Find a swift Yankee clipper—here is freight for you, black-bellied
clipper,
Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! steer straight toward Boston
bay.
5.
Now call for the President's marshal again, bring out the government
cannon,
Fetch home the roarers from Congress,—make another procession, guard it
with foot and dragoons.
This centre-piece for them!
Look, all orderly citizens! Look from the windows, women!
The committee open the box; set up the regal ribs; glue those that will not
stay;
Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.
You have got your revenge, old bluster! The crown is come to its own, and
more than its own.
6.
Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan—you are a made man from this
day;
You are mighty 'cute—and here is one of your bargains.
FRANCE, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THESE STATES.[1]
1.
A great year and place; A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart closer than any yet.
2.
I walked the shores of my Eastern Sea, Heard over the waves the little voice, Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings; Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running—nor from the single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils; Was not so desperate at the battues of death—was not so shocked at the repeated fusillades of the guns.
Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?
Could I wish humanity different?
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?
3.
O Liberty! O mate for me!
Here too the blaze, the bullet, and the axe, in reserve to fetch them out
in case of need,
Here too, though long repressed, can never be destroyed;
Here too could rise at last, murdering and ecstatic;
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.
Hence I sign this salute over the sea,
And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,
But remember the little voice that I heard wailing—and wait with perfect
trust, no matter how long;
And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeathed cause, as for
all lands,
And I send these words to Paris with my love,
And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them,
For I guess there is latent music yet in France—floods of it.
O I hear already the bustle of instruments—they will soon be drowning all
that would interrupt them;
O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,
It reaches hither—it swells me to joyful madness,
I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,
I will yet sing a song for you, ma femme!
[Footnote 1: 1793-4—-The great poet of Democracy is "not so shocked" at the great European year of Democracy.]
EUROPE, THE SEVENTY-SECOND AND SEVENTY-THIRD YEARS OF THESE STATES.[1]
1.
Suddenly, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,
Like lightning it leaped forth, half startled at itself,
Its feet upon the ashes and the rags—its hands tight to the throats of
kings.
O hope and faith!
O aching close of exiled patriots' lives!
O many a sickened heart!
Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves afresh.
2.
And you, paid to defile the People! you liars, mark!
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 laughed 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 scorned the ferocity of kings.
3.
But the sweetness of mercy brewed bitter destruction, and the frightened
rulers come back;
Each comes in state with his train—hangman, priest, tax-gatherer,
Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.
4.
Yet behind all, lowering, stealing—lo, a Shape,
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 crooked, pointed high over the top, like the head of a snake
appears.
5.
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 corpses of young men,
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets—those hearts pierced by the grey
lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughtered
vitality.
They live in other young men, O kings!
They live in brothers, again ready to defy you!
They were purified by death—they were taught and exalted.
Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seed for freedom, in its
turn to bear seed,
Which the winds carry afar and resow, and the rains and the snows nourish.
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose, But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counselling, cautioning.
6.
Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of you.
Is the house shut? Is the master away?
Nevertheless, be ready—be not weary of watching:
He will soon return—his messengers come anon.
[Footnote 1: The years 1848 and 1849.]
TO A FOILED REVOLTER OR REVOLTRESS.
1.
Courage! my brother or my sister!
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs;
That is nothing that is quelled 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.
2.
What we believe in waits latent for ever through all the continents, and all the islands and archipelagoes 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.
3.
The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and retreat,
The infidel triumphs—or supposes he triumphs,
The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, 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,
The cause is asleep—the strongest throats are still, choked
with their own blood,
The young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;
But, for all this, Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel
entered into possession.
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.
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 be discharged from that part of the earth,
And the infidel and the tyrant come into possession.
4.
Then courage! revolter! revoltress!
For till all ceases neither must you cease.
5.
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 foiled,
In defeat, poverty, imprisonment—for they too are great.
Did we think victory great?
So it is—But now it seems to me, when it cannot be helped, that defeat is
great,
And that death and dismay are great.
