I

O Freedom! Born amid resplendent spheres,

And, with God-like creative power, endowed,

Hast thou, to human life's blue depths, not vowed

A splendor, not alone like that which 'pears

At present, where the upper asure clears,

But that the Nebulae will yet unshroud?

I hear thy far off cry where thou art lone,

A John the Baptist: "Lo! one greater nears."

What is this Greater—this which is to meet

The planets and ascend high, high and higher?

The right of human spirit to aspire

And mount, unhampered—and by act, complete

Creations harmony, as by desire,

Proclaimed by brain with throb, by heart with beat.