You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease, <br /> Within this region I subsist, <br /> Whose spirits falter in the mist, <br /> And languish for the purple seas. <br /> It is the land that freemen till, <br /> That sober-suited Freedom chose, <br /> The land, where girt with friends or foes <br /> A man may speak the thing he will; <br /> A land of settled government, <br /> A land of just and old renown, <br /> Where Freedom slowly broadens down <br /> From precedent to precedent: <br /> <br /> Where faction seldom gathers head, <br /> But by degrees to fullness wrought, <br /> The strength of some diffusive thought <br /> Hath time and space to work and spread. <br /> <br /> Should banded unions persecute <br /> Opinion, and induce a time <br /> When single thought is civil crime, <br /> And individual freedom mute; <br /> <br /> Tho' Power should make from land to land <br /> The name of Britain trebly great-- <br /> Tho' every channel of the State <br /> Should fill and choke with golden sand-- <br /> <br /> Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth, <br /> Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky, <br /> And I will see before I die <br /> The palms and temples of the South.<br /><br />Alfred Lord Tennyson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/you-ask-me-why-tho-ill-at-ease/
