No More Learning

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.