Is life so dear, or peace so sweet,
As to be purchased by chains and slavery—
I don’t care for others, but as for myself
Give me liberty or give me death!
No doubt he did not quote it quite correctly, but I fastened on the third line, which I repeated deliberately after him, “I—do—not—care—for—others,” until he was once more moved to mirth and got down from what in one poem he has called:
The old Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist soap-box;
The Rousseau, Mirabeau, Danton soap-box;
The Karl Marx, Henry George, and Woodrow Wilson soap-box.
And we washed off our politics from our minds at high noon in a river. And Vachel sat astride of a giant tree that had fallen across the stream, and luxuriating in the heat he cried out to me, “Gosh, Stephen, I’m a sun-worshipper with my shirt off!”
