justice is always
in jeopardy, pitfalls
misery, meanness
Political democracy, as it exists and practically works in America, with all its threatening evils, supplies a training-school for making first-class men.
It is life’s gymnasium, not of good only, but of all.
We try often, though we fall back often.
A brave delight, fit for freedom’s athletes, fills these arenas, and fully satisfies, out of the action in them, irrespective of success.
Whatever we do not attain, we at any rate attain the experiences of the fight, the hardening of the strong campaign, and throb with currents of attempt at least. Time is ample. Let the victors come after us.
Not for nothing does evil play its part among us. Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy, peace walks amid hourly pitfalls, and of slavery, misery, meanness, the craft of tyrants and the credulity of the populace, in some of their protean forms, no voice can at any time say, They are not.
The clouds break a little, and the sun shines out — but soon and certain the lowering darkness falls again, as if to last forever.
Yet is there an immortal courage and prophecy in every sane soul that cannot, must not, under any circumstances, capitulate.
Vive, the attack—the perennial assault!
Vive, the unpopular cause—the spirit that audaciously aims—the never-abandon’d efforts, pursued the same amid opposing proofs and precedents.
From Democratic Vistas, an essay by Walt Whitman.
According to Wikipedia, Whitman condemned the corruption and greed of the Gilded Age, denouncing the post-Civil War materialism that had overtaken the country.
“Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States. Genuine belief seems to have left us,” he wrote.
His solution to the moral crisis was literature: “Two or three really original American poets … would give more compaction and more moral identity, (the quality to-day most needed) to these States, than all its Constitutions, legislative and judicial ties,” he declared, believing that literature would unite the country.
The line from the song, Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio? The Nation turns its lonely eyes to you ..” comes to mind.
Where are the heros today?
Where are the Two or three really original American poets?
Where have you gone … Taylor Swift?
I will say this.
Should Ms. Swift endorse any candidate this cycle, its game over.
Justice is always in jeopardy.
Peace walks amid hourly pitfalls, and of slavery, misery, meanness.
The craft of tyrants and the credulity of the populace, in some of their protean forms, no voice can at any time say, They are not.
It some ways, its comforting that Mr. Whitman felt this way back in 1871 and here we are today.
No Haiku For You 