The Rest by Ezra Pound
I can’t entirely decide how I feel about this poem. It could be offering hope to the unfortunate, but it seems to have an element of gloating. Maybe I’m just skeptical of any altruistic motives. Anyway, the fact that I’m even thinking about it inspired me to share the poem.
The Rest
By Ezra Pound
O helpless few in my country,
O remnant enslaved!
Artist broken against her,
A-stray, lost in the villages,
Mistrusted, spoken-against.
Lovers of beauty, starved,
Thwarted with systems,
Helpless against the control;
You who can not wear yourselves out
By persisting to successes,
You who can only speak,
Who can not steel yourselves into reiteration;
You of the finer sense,
Broken against false knowledge,
You who can know at first hand,
Hated, shut in, mistrusted:
Take thought:
I have weathered the storm,
I have beaten out my exile.
