The Works of Tennyson The Eversley Edition: Annotated by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Edited by Hallam, Lord Tennyson |
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 | The Works of Tennyson |  |
337
FREEDOM.
“It were good that men in their innovations should follow the example of Time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly but quietly, and by degrees, scarce to be perceived. . . . It is good also not to try experiments in States except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident: and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the change” (Bacon).
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 vapour-swathed
In meadows ever green;
III
For thou—when Athens reignd and Rome,Thy glorious eyes were dimm'd with pain
To mark in many a freeman's home
The slave, the scourge, the chain;
338
IV
O follower of the Vision, stillIn 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 marBy changes all too fierce and fast
This order of Her Human Star,
This heritage of the past;
VII
O scorner of the party cryThat wanders from the public good,
Thou—when the nations rear on high
Their idol smear'd with blood,
339
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 mindHath 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!
| The Works of Tennyson | |