Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. ELDER SOLDIER IN BROTHERHOOD TO THE YOUNGER, by EDWARD CARPENTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. ELDER SOLDIER IN BROTHERHOOD TO THE YOUNGER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Dear comrade, at whose feet thus now I kneel
Last Line: All that I have said I confirm.
Subject(s): Brotherhood; Freedom; Heroism; Love; Liberty; Heroes; Heroines


DEAR comrade, at whose feet thus now I kneel,
Of you perhaps so soon to be seen no more—
Here I give you my charge, that afterwards remembering and desiring me,
You may find me again in these others.

Slowly out of their faces I will emerge to you—lo! I swear it,
By the falling rain and dimpled thunderclouds in the East I swear it—
[To become your life whom I have loved so long]
With love absorbing, joy and blessedness enclosing,
I will emerge to you.

That you now to other comrades, and these again to others,
Over the whole world may bear the glad covenant, perfected, finished—
To form an indissoluble union and compact, a brother-hood unalterable,
Far-pervading, fresh and invisible as the wind, united in Freedom—
A golden circle of stamens, hidden beneath the petals of humanity,
And guarding the sacred ark.

Through heroisms and deaths and sacrifices,
Always for the poor and despised, always for the outcast and oppressed,
Through kinship with Nature, and the free handling of all forms and
customs,
Through the treasured teaching of inspired ones—never lost and never
wholly given to the world, but always emerging—
Through love, faithful love and comradeship, at last emancipating the soul
into that other realm (of freedom and joy) into which it is permitted to no
mortal to enter—
Thus to realise the indissoluble compact, to reveal the form of humanity.

To you, dear comrade, I transmit this charge—bequeathed also to
me—
In love remaining faithful to you, as now, never to change,
Through all times and vicissitudes faithful faithful to you.
Here now at your feet, leaning on your knees, in your eyes deep-looking,
All that I have said I confirm.





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