Liberty

The fiery mountains answer each other;

      Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;

The tempestuous oceans awake one another,

      And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter's throne,

            When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown.

From a single cloud the lightening flashes,

      Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around,

Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,

      An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound

            Is bellowing underground.

But keener thy gaze than the lightening's glare,

      And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp;

Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare

      Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp

            To thine is a fen-fire damp.

From billow and mountain and exhalation

      The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast;

From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,

      From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast,—

And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night

            In the van of the morning light.