Freedom

O thou so fair in summers gone,

While yet thy fresh and virgin soul

Inform'd the pillar'd Parthenon,

The glittering Capitol;

So fair in southern sunshine bathed,

But scarce of such majestic mien

As here with forehead vapour-swathed

In meadows ever green;

For thou—when Athens reign'd and Rome,

Thy glorious eyes were dimm'd with pain

To mark in many a freeman's home

The slave, the scourge, the chain;

O follower of the Vision, still

In motion to the distant gleam

Howe'er blind force and brainless will

May jar thy golden dream

Of Knowledge fusing class with class,

Of civic Hate no more to be,

Of Love to leaven all the mass,

Till every soul be free;

Who yet, like Nature, wouldst not mar

By changes all too fierce and fast

This order of her Human Star,

This heritage of the past;

O scorner of the party cry

That wanders from the public good,

Thou—when the nations rear on high

Their idol smear'd with blood,

And when they roll their idol down—

Of saner worship sanely proud;

Thou loather of the lawless crown

As of the lawless crowd;

How long thine ever-growing mind

Hath still'd the blast and strown the wave,

Tho' some of late would raise a wind

To sing thee to thy grave,

Men loud against all forms of power—

Unfurnish'd brows, tempestuous tongues,

Expecting all things in an hour—

Brass mouths and iron lungs!