To Toussaint L'ouverture
To Toussaint L'ouverture - meaning Summary
Triumph in Remembered Resistance
Wordsworth addresses Toussaint L'Ouverture as a wronged, imprisoned leader and offers consolation. He acknowledges Toussaint's fall and suffering but urges him to endure with a "cheerful brow." The poem insists that though Toussaint may be physically defeated, his cause and influence persist in nature and human feeling—wind, earth, sky, and the "unconquerable mind"—so his legacy and allies are moral and universal.
Read Complete AnalysesTOUSSAINT, the most unhappy man of men! Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den;-- O miserable Chieftain! where and when Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow: Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies; There's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
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