What man is there so bold that he should say <br />"Thus, and thus only, would I have the sea"? <br />For whether lying calm and beautiful, <br />Clasping the earth in love, and throwing back <br />The smile of heaven from waves of amethyst; <br />Or whether, freshened by the busy winds, <br />It bears the trade and navies of the world <br />To ends of use or stern activity; <br />Or whether, lashed by tempests, it gives way <br />To elemental fury, howls and roars <br />At all its rocky barriers, in wild lust <br />Of ruin drinks the blood of living things, <br />And strews its wrecks o'er leagues of desolate shore, <br />Always it is the sea, and men bow down <br />Before its vast and varied majesty. <br /> <br />So all in vain will timorous ones essay <br />To set the metes and bounds of Liberty. <br />For Freedom is its own eternal law; <br />It makes its own conditions, and in storm <br />Or calm alike fulfills the unerring Will. <br />Let us not then despise it when it lies <br />Still as a sleeping lion, while a swarm <br />Of gnat-like evils hover round its head; <br />Nor doubt it when in mad, disjointed times <br />It shakes the torch of terror, and its cry <br />Shrills o'er the quaking earth, and in the flame <br />Of riot and war we see its awful form <br />Rise by the scaffold, where the crimson axe <br />Rings down its grooves the knell of shuddering kings. <br />Forever in thine eyes, O Liberty, <br />Shines that high light whereby the world is saved, <br />And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee!<br /><br />John Hay<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/liberty-5/
