Yet my soul will still defy your prison bolts and bars,
And soaring far on eager wings beyond the faintest stars,
Live in a world to you unknown, where only poet soul
Can bask in beauty undefiled by cankering control!
In vain is all your hate and scorn—vain your prison blight;
God loves me, and I feel assured that all will yet be right!
I know one law—a perfect law, by Nature's self designed—
'Tis Heaven's dearest gift to man—The Freedom of the Mind!
If minds and hearts were easy read as faces we can see,
Society would lose its dread and many a prisoner free!