The Revolutionist Mindset
Oluseyi Ogunbanwo@oluseyiogunbanwo018093
19 days ago
*The Revolutionist Mindset*
What spirit moves within the breast of man
That, seized by one imperious thought,
He yields his reason captive to its flame
And crowns that inward fire with sacred name?
It is a temper wrought in restless hours,
When Freedom—fairest daughter of the skies—
Is invoked, yet scarcely understood;
For oft her holy semblance is profaned
By hands unclean, by hearts untried in virtue.
Behold the Revolutionist—
Not always clad in terror at the first,
But robed in promise, eloquent and bold;
His tongue distils the music of redress,
His voice ascends like trumpet to the crowd,
Proclaiming bondage where debate yet lives,
And tyranny where law still draws its breath.
Thus are the passions of the multitude
Awakened, stirred, and marshalled into storm.
For Freedom, when pursued by lawless means,
Becomes herself the instrument of chains;
And they who swear to break oppression’s yoke
Full oft erect a sterner throne of dread.
The road they tread, though paved with noble words,
Is thick with appetite and mortal pride—
Ambition, masked as zeal for public good,
And vengeance, veiled as righteous recompense.
“Plunder and purge,” though whispered, not proclaimed,
Becomes the under-chant of fervent ranks;
Till blood, once shed in name of liberty,
Cries out against the very cause it served.
Then fall the dwellings of the innocent,
And fields long tilled by patient, honest hands
Lie desolate beneath the heel of change.
The sweat of years, the garnered wealth of toil,
Is scattered to the winds of civil wrath.
Search thou the annals of the troubled earth,
And mark what harvest such fierce sowers reap.
Mobutu Sese Seko, enthroned in gilded arrogance,
Left Zaire drained beneath imperial grasp.
Idi Amin, whose shadow darkened Uganda’s plains,
Ruled by dread, and left a scar of fear.
Mengistu Haile Mariam, in Ethiopia’s anguished hour,
Unleashed a tempest history still recounts.
Jerry Rawlings, whose fervid revolution
Remains a question argued by the years.
What monument endures of wrathful change
When reason is deposed and fury crowned?
What wealth restored? What virtue firmly built?
Too oft the treasury stands stripped and bare,
While he who vowed deliverance walks in gold,
And they he swore to raise are bowed more low.
Yet not all change is born of violent flame;
There moves, though less adorned with spectacle,
A nobler labour—patient, disciplined—
By which the commonwealth is shaped and healed.
Such men seek not the altar of applause,
Nor drench the soil to prove their constancy;
But, guided by the sober lamp of law,
Advance by measured step the cause of right.
O therefore let discernment be thy guard.
Call not each thunderer a god of rain,
Nor hail each insurgent voice as heaven-sent.
For oft beneath the clamour of reform
There lurks the ancient serpent of desire,
Whose whispered promise, sweet upon the ear,
Conceals the fang of unrestrained dominion.
As once in fable told by Dickens’ pen,
The tender bird, by many snares beset,
At length grows wary of the baited field.
So may the awakened mind, by trial schooled,
Rise from the meshes of delusive cries
And perch in watchful wisdom, undeceived—
Knowing the scarecrow from the faithful guard,
And choosing not the tempest over truth.
-Oluseyi Ogunbanwo
#poetry
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