Viva La Republique!

I wrote this poem a couple weeks ago. It deals with the young men who fought in the emeute (rebellion) in Les Miserables. They called themselves the Friends of the ABC ("abaisse" - French for abased, poor) Hugo apparently put a lot of effort into making these men express certain views. The Friends of The ABC were an utterly miserable set of young men whose utmost goal was death. They truly did care about the poor class of France but they had nothing to give to them. Even giving up their lives did absolutely no good to help their cause. They succeeded only in killing themselves and others with them. However, Hugo feels infinitely sorry for them and tries to show their wretched condition. In fact, when the book was published, many people were offended by the sympathy with which he portrayed these rebels.

The poem is meant to discuss both the bitter facade of apathy and the hopeless desperation that characterizes these men.

(I finally finished the book by the way!)

VIVA LA REPUBLIQUE!

Somebody said suicide

And then could we refuse?

There are many ways to die

And nothing left to lose.

So the fray is making noise,

It rains sometimes, what then?

And all of us are little boys

Pretending to be men.

We don’t think of surrendering

We die for liberty

The fact is, we are wandering

And so seem to be free.

To wander and to seem free

That is to be lost

And lost is bad enough in life

But worse when you’re a ghost.

Live in Hell, die in Hell

Tell me someone cared

We're so used to Hell by now

But GOD, we are so scared!

-B.J.J. aka StrongJoy

Seize The Day!

-StrongJoy