Leaves of Grass (1860)/Europe, the 72d and 73d Years T. S.

by Walt Whitman

Layout 2

EUROPE,

The 72d and 73d Years of These States.

1.Suddenly out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of
slaves,
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.

2.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.

3.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.

4.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, lords, jailers, and sycophants.

5.Yet behind all, hovering, 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 crook'd, pointed high over the top, like
the head of a snake appears.

6.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.

7.Those corpses of young men,
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets—those
hearts pierced by the gray lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with
unslaughter'd vitality.

8.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.

9.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 re-sow, and the rains
and the snows nourish.

10. Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants
let loose,
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering,
counselling, cautioning.

11. Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair
of you.

12. Is the house shut? Is the master away?
Nevertheless be ready—be not weary of watching,
He will soon return—his messengers come anon.