John Brown’s Body

Η αγάπη σαν γεράκι που ταΐζεις με την ίδια σου την καρδιά.

Sally Dupré, from the high porch of her houseStared at the road. They would be here soon enough.She had waved a flag the last time they went away.This time she would wave her hand or her handkerchief.That was what women did. The column passed byAnd the women waved, and it came back and they waved,And, in between, if you loved, you lived by a dullClock of long minutes that passed like sunbonneted womenEach with the same dry face and the same set hands.I have read, they have told me that love is a pretty godWith light wings stuck to his shoulders. They did not tell meThat love is nursing a hawk with yellow eyes,That love is feeding your heart to the beak of the hawkBecause an old woman, gossiping, uttered a name.

Η ιστορία μπορεί να ντύσει έναν άντρα με στολή, όχι όμως να πει τι ένιωθε.

He was a man, and as a man he knewLove, separation, sorrow, joy and death.He was a master of the tricks of war,He gave great strokes and warded strokes as great.He was the prop and pillar of a State,The incarnation of a national dream,And when the State fell and the dream dissolvedHe must have lived with bitterness itself—But what his sorrow was and what his joy,And how he felt in the expense of strength,And how his heart contained its bitterness,He will not tell us. We can lie about him,Dress up a dummy in his uniformAnd put our words into the dummy’s mouth,Say “Here Lee must have thought,” and “There, no doubt,By what we know of him, we may supposeHe felt—this pang or that—” but he remainsBeyond our stagecraft, reticent as ice,Reticent as the fire within the stone.

Το τι θεωρεί δίκαιο ένα δικαστήριο εξαρτάται από το ποιον υπερασπίζεσαι.

Had I interfered in the matter which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved … had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, or the so-called great … and suffered and sacrificed, what I have in this interference, it would have been all right. Every man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.