Freedom
By Alfred Lord Tennyson
I.
O thou so fair in summers gone,
While yet thy fresh and virgin soul
Informd the pillard 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 thouwhen Athens reignd and Rome,
Thy glorious eyes were dimmd with pain
To mark in many a freemans home
The slave, the scourge, the chain;
IV.
O follower of the Vision, still
In motion to the distant gleam
Howeer 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,
Thouwhen the nations rear on high
Their idol smeard 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 stilld 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
Unfurnishd brows, tempestuous tongues,
Expecting all things in an hour
Brass mouths and iron lungs!