Freedom

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

　　

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I. O thou so fair in summers gone, While yet thy fresh and virgin soul Inform’d the pillar’d Parthenon, The glittering Capitol; II. So fair in southern sunshine bathed, But scarce of such majestic mien As here with forehead vapor-swathed In meadows ever green; III. 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; IV. O follower of the Vision, still In motion to the distant gleam Howe’er blind force and brainless will May jar thy golden dream V. 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; VI. 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; VII. 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, VIII. And when they roll their idol down– Of saner worship sanely proud; Thou loather of the lawless crown As of the lawless crowd; IX. 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, X. Men loud against all forms of power– Unfurnish’d brows, tempestuous tongues, Expecting all things in an hour– Brass mouths and iron lungs!

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