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freedom. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 9 (Poems) [1909]

Edition used:

The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. Fireside Edition (Boston and New York, 1909).

Part of: The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. (Fireside Edition).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


freedom.

    • Once I wished I might rehearse
    • Freedom's pæan in my verse,
    • That the slave who caught the strain
    • Should throb until he snapped his chain,
    • But the Spirit said, ‘Not so;
    • Speak it not, or speak it low;
    • Name not lightly to be said,
    • Gift too precious to be prayed,
    • Passion not to be expressed
    • But by heaving of the breast:
    • Yet,—wouldst thou the mountain find
    • Where this deity is shrined,
    • Who gives to seas and sunset skies
    • Their unspent beauty of surprise,
    • And, when it lists him, waken can
    • Brute or savage into man;
    • Or, if in thy heart he shine,
    • Blends the starry fates with thine,
    • Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee.
    • And makes thy thoughts archangels be;
    • Freedom's secret wilt thou know?—
    • Counsel not with flesh and blood;
    • Loiter not for cloak or food;
    • Right thou feelest, rush to do.’