If it had not been for these thing
I might have lived out my life
talking at street corners to scorning men.
I might have die, unmarked, unknown, a failure.
Now we are not a failure.
This is our career and our triumph. Never
in our full life could we hope to do such work
For tolerance, for justice, for men’s understanding
of man, as now we do by accident.
Our words, our lives, our pains—nothing!
The taking of our lives—lives of a good shoemaker and
A poor fish peddler—
All! That last moment belongs to us—
That agony is our triumph.