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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. WHO ARE YOU, by EDWARD CARPENTER Poet's Biography
First Line: Who are you who go about to save them that are lost
Last Line: Arise, then, and become a savior.
Subject(s): Children; Childhood
First Line: Who are you who go about to save them that are lost
Last Line: Arise, then, and become a savior.
Subject(s): Children; Childhood
WHO are you who go about to save them that are lost?
Are you saved yourself?
Do you not know that who would save his own life must lose it?
Are you then one of the 'lost'?
Be sure, very sure, that each one of these can teach you as much as,
probably more than, you can teach them.
Have you then sat humbly at their feet, and waited on their lips that they
should be the first to speak—and been reverent before these
children—whom you so little understand?
Have you dropped into the bottomless pit from between yourself and them all
hallucination of superiority, all flatulence of knowledge, every shred of
abhorrence and loathing?
Is it equal, is it free as the wind between you?
Could you be happy receiving favors from one of the most despised of these?
Could you be yourself one of the lost?
Arise, then, and become a savior.
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
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THE THREE CHILDREN by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN
CHILDREN SELECTING BOOKS IN A LIBRARY by RANDALL JARRELL
COME TO THE STONE ... by RANDALL JARRELL
THE LOST WORLD by RANDALL JARRELL
A SICK CHILD by RANDALL JARRELL
CONTINENT'S END by ROBINSON JEFFERS
ON THE DEATH OF FRIENDS IN CHILDHOOD by DONALD JUSTICE
THE POET AT SEVEN by DONALD JUSTICE
AS A MOULD FOR SOME FAIR FORM by EDWARD CARPENTER