You ask me, why, though ill at ease
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.
~~~
It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land, where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will;
~~~
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent;
~~~
Where faction seldom gathers head,
But, by degrees to fullness wrought,
The strength of some diffusive thought
Hath time and space to work and spread.
~~~
Should banded unions persecute
Opinion, and induce a time
When single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute,
~~~
Though power should make it from land to land,
The name of Britain trebly great-
Though every channel of the state
Should fill and choke with golden sand-
~~~
Yet waft me from the harbor-mouth,
Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.
YOU ARE READING
Poetry
Poetry~Poems~They're not just words on paper, they express feelings right to you~Beautiful Word Portraits~Mine, and others~ For my best poems, read the my newest ones. (The ones toward the bottom of the list)
