Читать книгу The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 06, April, 1858 - Various - Страница 11

  Farewell, Politics, utterly! What can I do? I cannot

  Fight, you know; and to talk I am wholly ashamed. And although I

  Gnash my teeth when I look in your French or your English papers,

  What is the good of that? Will swearing, I wonder, mend matters?

  Cursing and scolding repel the assailants? No, it is idle;

  No, whatever befalls, I will hide, will ignore or forget it.

  Let the tail shift for itself; I will bury my head. And what's the

  Roman Republic to me, or I to the Roman Republic?

    Why not fight?—In the first place, I haven't so much as a musket.

  In the next, if I had, I shouldn't know how I should use it.

  In the third, just at present I'm studying ancient marbles.

  In the fourth, I consider I owe my life to my country.

  In the fifth,—I forget; but four good reasons are ample.

  Meantime, pray, let 'em fight, and be killed. I delight in devotion.

  So that I 'list not, hurrah for the glorious army of martyrs!

  Sanguis martyrum semen Ecclesiae; though it would seem this

  Church is indeed of the purely Invisible, Kingdom-Come kind:

  Militant here on earth! Triumphant, of course, then, elsewhere!

  Ah, good Heaven, but I would I were out far away from the pother!