The song was an outlet, too, for the stinging bitterness accumulated
during years.
The people looked ahead, where the red banner was swinging and
streaming in the air. All were saying something and shouting; but
the individual voice was lost in the song--the new song, in which
the old note of mournful meditation was absent. It was not the
utterance of a soul wandering in solitude along the dark paths of
melancholy perplexity, of a soul beaten down by want, burdened with
fear, deprived of individuality, and colorless. It breathed no
sighs of a strength hungering for space; it shouted no provoking
cries of irritated courage ready to crush both the good and the bad
indiscriminately. It did not voice the elemental instinct of the
animal to snatch freedom for freedom's sake, nor the feeling of
wrong or vengeance capable of destroying everything and powerless
to build up anything. In this song there was nothing from the old,
slavish world. It floated along directly, evenly; it proclaimed an
iron virility, a calm threat. Simple, clear, it swept the people
after it along an endless path leading to the far distant future;
and it spoke frankly about the hardships of the way.
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