Madmoments: or First Verseattempts By a Bornnatural. Addressed to the Lightheaded of Society at Large, by Henry Ellison |
 | I. |
|
|
|
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| II. |
|
TO FREEDOM. |
|
 | Madmoments: or First Verseattempts |  |
TO FREEDOM.
Hail Freedom! Springhead of each choicest Good,Flowing from Heaven's depths, the more that share
Thy Draughts the fuller is the Fount. Lifeair,
By which alone we live, and are renewed!
'Tis thy strong Beating spreads the healthy Blood
Thro' th' Universal Heart, whose Pulses were
Else dull and stagnate, and of all Things fair
To thee are due the Firstfruits, next to God!
How glorious, methinks, thy Name to hear
In the calm Whisper of tenmillion low,
Accordant Voices—. like the Ocean, so
Mankind, when joined in one, has nought to fear:
Each then is what the Whole is! and when one
Is injured, it is all Humanity
That's injured in him—thus is each kept by
143
Are little, but all godlike as the Whole,
All free, like Drops that with the Ocean roll!
Thus too each Soul is safe in the great Soul,
And injuring it, you injure the Mosthigh,
Who will remember it accordingly!
There is I know not what in such a Sight
Of Majesty, when private Hope and Hate
Mix not therewith its Grandeur to abate;
When in the sole Conviction of Man's Right
A Nation lifts its Voice, and in the Might,
The fearless Consciousness of Truth, elate
Yet sober, while just Means most fitly mate
With holiest Ends, goes forth unto the Fight!
A Triomph too not stained with Blood nor wrought
By Violence, that mars the Good it sought:
But thro' the noblest Feelings of Mankind,
Resistlessly, as in one Heart combined!
And when that Heart has but the Feeling true
Of its ownself, and what it's destined to,
No greater Good will it then seek or find!
For if it thinks and feels godlike and free
Within itself, where can it truly be
So much so, and thenceforth what chains can bind?
Thoughts are the only Fetters for the Mind!
| Madmoments: or First Verseattempts | |