XVI
Oft here and there freedom is an empty name,
And liberty a hollow, idle sound;
Yet day by day ’mongst us feels this watchword same
Each heart with stormy throb anew rebound;
Where’er one’s gaze doth fall, ’tis writ in fire there,
And round about eternally it peals;
Each morn we breathe a sigh for this our first care,
At night our final prayer with it deals.
Whene’er the boundless sea draws us from afar,
And free the wind doth toss our locks apart;
Whene’er the steeds that roam the plain, know no bar,
With flowing mane on the horizon start;
Whene’er before our gaze proud soars the eagle
And flaps his wings in bluey heights above:
The fettered hand the while then shakes its shackle,
And quivering the lips with “Freedom” move.
O Freedom, like a wondrous myth art thou borne
Enchantingly to us from times now wan:
Dim as an echo of paradise forlorn
That sleeps concealed within the heart of man.
Our spirit grown with chains in one scarce trusts too
That more than rumors could these tidings be,
That what in yonder distance dawns was true,
That we were once a nation of the free.
Thou didst appear within the tales of childlore
A shining fairy with a star above
Whene’er the grandsire read chronicles of yore;
Wast thou and thou alone youth’s own true love,
Thy sunny gaze did ever before him beam,
And dreams of thee his martial moments filled;
For thee his shining sword he drew in dream,
In dream his warmest blood for thee he spilled.
In slav’ry’s night wast thou a star to man,
Though far, though unattainable, alas!
’Twas thou that through his thoughts forever ran,
The goal of all his hopes to thee did pass;
And as a promised land beckst thou afar
The head that’s gray, when wrapped o’er chains in dream;
And e’en on dying eyes earth’s last rays are
United with thee in a twinkling gleam.
O Freedom, let be that with lapse of time came
Thy name to lose its tone, once pure a part;
Let greedy egoists desecrate thy name
Who must suspend thy emblem in their mart;
Let be that slanderers of true liberty
Weave thee upon their flag in false acclaim;
And those who at length escape the yoke, wildly
Then throttle other nations in thy name:
To hold thee ever pure in our hearts we seek,
Taught constantly thy fuller worth to know
Through rain of blows, the sting on the sunken cheek,
And rapacious hands that grasp all from us so.
The blows that day by day are dealt with lash,
The thorns that daily pierce our brow,—all see
Each after each through the soul thy image flash,
And from the depths the sigh wells, “Liberty.”
O Freedom, daily, thy opposite beneath,
We learn thy full and lustrous charm to admire,
In that hollow moan, in the gnash of teeth
With which we gnaw our bit our life entire.
When foreign heel can trample our nape in dust
And every comer scorn and torture deals,
The lips are closed ’neath hangman’s lash unjust,
Though through the heart storm’s longing, “Freedom,” peals!