Towards democracy, str. 78

64 Towards Democracy

XLII

The word travels on.

I have been on tramp, and my boots are dusty and * hobnailed, and my clothes are torn: do not ask me into your house; (God knows; I might spoon my food with a knife !)

Give me a penny on the doorstep and let me pass on. I have sat with you long, and loved you well, unknown to you, but now I go otherwhere.

XLII

The word travels on.

Out of the mists of time, out of innumerable births, of endless journeys, transfigurements, lives, deaths, sorrows, emerging, my voice sounds to myself, to you, nearer than all thought: tentatively trying the first notes, wonderingly at its beauty, of the Song—strange word !—of Joy.

To spread abroad over the earth, to be realised in time: Freedom to be realised in time, for which the whole of History has been a struggle and a preparation:

The dream of the soul’s slow disentanglement.

{O Blessed is he that has passed away! .

Blessed, alive or dead, whom the bitter taunts of existence reach not—nor betrayals protruded from dear faces, nor weariness nor cold nor pain—dwelling in heayen, and | looking forth in peace upon the world.

Blessed, thrice blessed, by day, by night! Blessed who sleeps with him, blessed who eats walks talks, blessed