Some Kind of Monster

 by Brett Rutherford

 

Adapted from Victor Hugo, l’Année Terrible, “June 1871”

 

Some want to call me a chimera,
that impossible monster compiled
of bits and scraps of various beasts,
and why? Because I remain fraternal.
To dream of a Europe as free
as the far-flung states of America,
to demand fairness, the examination
of facts and science; indeed, to reason,
makes other say you live in clouds,
your words as meaningless as wind-gusts;
who, witnessing a vast
     and harsh triumph,
refuses to exult, raising his hand
against the worse of two evils,
to lessen on every side the misery.
What am I, then, a monster,
unwilling as I am to sweep aside
the unhappy multitude, to offer up
to butchery one man to another,
or to deny asylum to those condemned to die.

 

What kinds of beasts am I amalgam’d from,
refusing to press upon the weak and blind,
and, as I have a forgiving nature,
will they write me out of evolution’s tree?

 

If I say that we owe the just
     and common law to all,
excepting not the brigands
or the bandits who lurk
at every crossroads, then I
myself am called a criminal!

 

Let’s just ignore the critics —
whose pens hold a lot of brains
but very little courage — and fight.
The dark time of our trial has come.
Our mettle shall be tested now.
Well you might plead your age,
old Veteran of many wars
(I am an old man, too, remember!)
If we are old, so then, we are old.
We must carry on, even when faced
     with denial and failure.

 

The kindest of histories will only say
you acted because your mind was gone.
Others will curse, and mock, and scold.
Get ready for insults, and boos, and pelted stones.
Like me, you shall be hunted down
by the always-ready criminal
slanderers. After the stoning,
banishment. But who in the end
shall history praise, and who condemn?