I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please.
As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 7. SHAKESPEARE.
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
And still revolt when truth would set them free.
License they mean, when they cry Liberty;
For who loves that must first be wise and good.
On the Detraction which followed upon my writing
Certain Treatises, II. MILTON.
The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed;
Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod,
Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God.
On the Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves near Washington. J.R.
LOWELL.
The sword may pierce the beaver,
Stone walls in time may sever;
'T is mind alone,
Worth steel and stone,
That keeps men free forever.
O, the sight entrancing. T. MOORE.
Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?
The Ages. W.C. BRYANT.
Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind.
Childe Harold, Canto IV. LORD BYRON.
Freedom needs all her poets; it is they
Who give her aspirations wings,
And to the wiser law of music sway
Her wild imaginings.
To the Memory of Hood. J.R. LOWELL.
Free soil, free men, free speech, free press,
Fremont and victory!
Chorus: Republican Campaign Song, 1856.
R.R. RAYMOND.
FRIENDSHIP.
A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs;
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
Epigraph to friendship. R.W. EMERSON.