Re; Hitchens (and Marx/Negri) on genocide

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Fri Dec 7 13:38:37 PST 2001


"Peter K." wrote:
> >
> > Both Empire and Letters to a Young
> > Contrarian (Hitch's latest book) contain this quote
> > from William Morris:
> >
> > "Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that
> > they fought for comes about in spite of defeat,
> > and when it comes it turns out not to be what
> > they meant, and other men have to fight for
> > what they meant under another name."

Carrol Cox:
> What's most impressive about this are the lovely sentence rhythms, which
> create the illusion that something is being said.

The Argument.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air;

Hungry clouds swag on the deep

Once meek, and in a perilous path,

The just man kept his course along

The vale of death.

Roses are planted where thorns grow.

And on the barren heath

Sing the honey bees.

Then the perilous path was planted:

And a river, and a spring

On every cliff and tomb;

And on the bleached bones

Red clay brought forth.

Till the villain left the paths of ease,

To walk in perilous paths, and drive

The just man into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks

In mild humility.

And the just man rages in the wilds

Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air;

Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

-- W. Blake



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