The Old Revolution
The Old Revolution - meaning Summary
Reckoning After Revolution
The speaker looks back on youthful commitment to a failed revolution and admits disillusionment, guilt, and complicity. Addressing an intimate other, he alternates confession and command, asking them to enter a shared trial—"Into this furnace I ask you now to venture." The poem links personal betrayal to social power: kings, killers, beggars, and lovers become motifs of corrupted duty, exhausted language, and moral weariness.
Read Complete AnalysesI finally broke into the prison I found my place in the chain Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows All the brave young men They're waiting now to see a signal Which some killer will be lighting for pay Into this furnace I ask you now to venture You whom I cannot betray I fought in the old revolution On the side of the ghost and the king Of course I was very young And I thought that we were winning I can't pretend I still feel very much like singing As they carry the bodies away Into this furnace I ask you now to venture You whom I cannot betray Lately you've started to stutter As though you had nothing to say To all of my architects let me be traitor Now let me say I myself gave the order To sleep and to search and to destroy Into this furnace I ask you now to venture You whom I cannot betray Yes, you who are broken by power You who are absent all day You who are kings for the sake of your children's story The hand of your beggar is burdened down with money The hand of your lover is clay Into this furnace I ask you now to venture You whom I cannot betray
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