Classic Poem

Proclaim for me the law of redemption:
I do not hold a sword across the common road, I demand that you withdraw your sword:
I do not ask to be thrust forth, I ask only to have leave to go forth —
I may will to remain, doubtless part of me will always remain:
Content being respected and protest being respected,
But my draft must be honored whatever its spendthrift humor,
Giving me right of way

What does it mean to have right of way?
It means eclipse and sunburst, burial and resurrection,
It means universal fulfilment, man in his heart as the seed in the ground,
It means to achieve loyalty through rebellion, peace through pain,
It means to sign no single power away, to not accept obeisance,
It means to give tyrants everywhere notice to quit,
It means to take all titles of nobility from purses and rent rolls,
It means that mouths shall go unfed only when no one has food, backs go uncovered to the cold only in the general nakedness.

On your knees, O humble vagrants, once our masters! on your knees!

I declare that the social order is to be superseded by another social order:
I know the quality of your folly when you go about the streets looking in the dust of noisy oratory for the complete state:
I know very well that when the complete state appears it will appear because you bring it to others not because others bring it to you,
And I know that you will not carry it as a burden upon your back but as something unscrolled within

I declare to all the rest of you that it is your business to put aside all other purposes but that purpose which contributes to my individual success,
Until that is done nothing is done:
You have choked your granaries with grain, you have riches to spare, yet your granaries and riches are empty:
You have found that your peck measure had no bottom.
Towards me you will concentrate all power, you are bound to see me through,
I, having right of way.

Here, then, my hand: in my will yours to be done, in yours mine.

What does it mean to have right of way?
It means to start life ahead of all origins.

Are you unwilling to step aside?
Let us make a compact:
From this day on let us scrupulously keep out of each other's road,
You need the whole of your heritage, I need the whole of mine,
In autumns of years on harvested fields gathered by free hands we will make a common fund of diverse plenty.

You have never trusted me because you have never trusted yourself,
Into my life you have read the hesitations, futilities, cowardices, shames, of your heart,
I have retaliated with even hand, you have carried long the dead weight of my errancy,
In this day's delivery we will be quits with suspicion.

This is not mysterious, it is not a secret on sale for gold,
This is not a promise with which the baffled fancy is forever tantalised,
This is a tangible reality inviting the touch of your fingers,
This is Koran, Bible, Zend, law of vision, law of joy,
This is your nameless yet unopened unbudded self.

Right of way is mine,
I assume it without arrogance yet with unfrustrated will,
I cleave a brutal deliverance in the press of the crowd,
I must get out, I must have air,
I ask no coachman favors, I trust my own feet,
I ask for space: O right of way!