Freedom poems
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The Quaker Alumni
© John Greenleaf Whittier
From the well-springs of Hudson, the sea-cliffs of Maine,
Grave men, sober matrons, you gather again;
And, with hearts warmer grown as your heads grow more cool,
Play over the old game of going to school.
The Columbiad: Book V
© Joel Barlow
Sage Franklin next arose with cheerful mien,
And smiled unruffled o'er the solemn scene;
His locks of age a various wreath embraced,
Palm of all arts that e'er a mortal graced;
Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne,
And the tame thunder from the tempest torn.
Life
© Peter McArthur
DEAR God, I thank Thee for this resting place,
This fleshly temple where my soul may dwell,
Le Vampire (The Vampire)
© Charles Baudelaire
Toi qui, comme un coup de couteau,
Dans mon coeur plaintif es entrée;
Toi qui, forte comme un troupeau
De démons, vins, folle et parée,
Ode:Inscribed to W.H. Channing
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though loath to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My honeyed thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.
Alfred. Book V.
© Henry James Pye
As o'er the tented field the squadrons spread,
Stretch'd on the turf the hardy soldier's bed;
While the strong mound, and warder's careful eyes,
Protect the midnight camp from quick surprise,
A voice, in hollow murmurs from the plain,
Attracts the notice of the wakeful train.
Book Fourteenth [conclusion]
© William Wordsworth
In one of those excursions (may they ne'er
Fade from remembrance!) through the Northern tracts
An Essay on Death and a Prison
© Henry King
A prison is in all things like a grave,
Where we no better priviledges have
Then dead men, nor so good. The soul once fled
Lives freer now, then when she was cloystered
Flower of Love
© Oscar Wilde
Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common
clay
I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the
larger day.
Z---------'s dream
© Anne Brontë
Unwonted weakness o'er me crept;
I sighed - nay, weaker still - I wept!
Wept, like a woman o'er the deed
I had been proud to do: -
As I had made his bosom bleed;
My own was bleeding too.
Our Country
© Edgar Albert Guest
God grant that we shall never see
Our country slave to lust and greed;
Ode, Written On The Opening Of The Last Campaign
© Amelia Opie
Spring! thy impatient bloom restrain,
Nor wake so soon thy genial pow'r,
Nightmare At Noon
© Stephen Vincent Benet
But do not call it loud. There is plenty of time.
There is plenty of time, while the bombs on London fall
And turn the world to wind and water and fire.
There is time to sleep while the fire-bombs fall on London,
They are stubborn people in London.
Home, Sweet Home
© Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
"It shall be a royal mansion,
A fair and beautiful thing,
It will be the presence-chamber
Of thy Saviour, Lord and King.
Ode On Venice
© George Gordon Byron
I.
Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea!
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt. Canto I.
© George Gordon Byron
Nay, smile not at my sullen brow,
Alas! I cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.
Lines Occasioned By A Visit To Whittlebury Forest, Northamptonshire, In August, 1800
© Robert Bloomfield
Genius of the Forest Shades!
Lend thy pow'r, and lend thine ear!
The Triumph Of Melancholy
© James Beattie
Memory, be still! why throng upon the thought
These scenes deep-stain'd with Sorrow's sable dye?
Hast thou in store no joy-illumined draught,
To cheer bewilder'd Fancy's tearful eye?
From Boethius: De Consolatione Philosophiae; Book III. Metre 5
© Samuel Johnson
The man who pants for ample sway,
Must bid his passions all obey;
