Praise of underground work

It is splendid
To take up the word as a weapon in the class war
To rouse the masses to the fight in a loud and ringing voice
To crush the oppressors
To free the oppressed.
Difficult and useful is the small daily labor
The grim and persistent knitting of the Party's net 
In the face of the capitalists' barking guns:
To speak
But to conceal the speaker
To win victory
But conceal the victor
To die
But hide the death.
Who would not do much for fame
But who would do it for silence?
Yet the impoverished host invites honor to supper
And out of the tiny and tumble-down hut steps irresistibly
Greatness
And fame calls in vain
On the doers of the greatest deeds.

--Bertolt Brecht 

(Adapted by MIM from a translation by Eric Bently in: "The Jewish 
Wife and

Other Short Plays," New York: Grove Press, 1965.)