“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget

falls drop by drop upon the heart,

until, in our own despair,

against our will,

comes wisdom

through the awful grace of God.”

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.”

Thoughts about this Poem

Robert F. Kennedy quoted these lines in his speech announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April 1968. The same words were placed on Kennedy’s own tombstone at Arlington Cemetery.

Kennedy said “my favorite poet was Aeschylus.”

There are few reliable sources for the life of Aeschylus. He was said to have been born in about 525 or 524 BCE in Eleusis, a small town just northwest of Athens. As a youth, he worked at a vineyard until, according to tradition, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. His first play was performed when he was only 26 years old (in 499 BCE), and fifteen years later he won his first prize at Athens’ annual Dionysia playwriting competition.