An den Nachgeboren

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Thu Sep 12 06:06:12 PDT 2002


The below quoted isn't the full poem, just the last verses; sorry I don't time just now to look it up, but it's well worth doing. jks


>From: JCWisc at aol.com
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: on being humorless
>Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 21:52:42 EDT
>
> >"He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news."
> >
> >Who said that? Karl Kraus?
>
>Justin writes:
>
> > Brecht. It's from the poem To Those Born Later. jks
>
>Yes, of course, Brecht. Not from that poem, though, which is worth quoting
>in full:
>
>To Those Born Later (1936)
>
>You who will emerge from the flood
>In which we have gone under
>Remember
>When you speak of our failings
>The dark times too
>Which you have escaped.
>For we went, changing countries oftener than our shoes
>Through the wars of the classes, despairing
>When there was injustice only, and no rebellion.
>And yet we know:
>Hatred, even of meanness
>Contorts the features.
>Anger, even against injustice
>Makes the voice hoarse. Oh, we
>Who wanted to prepare the ground for friendliness
>Could not ourselves be friendly.
>But you, when the time comes at last
>And man is helper to man
>Think of us
>With forbearance.
>
>As I recall there's a later poem of his, similar in feeling, which includes
>the line "Judge us not too harshly."
>
>Jacob Conrad

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