Poem by Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce

Freedom

Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,
Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;
On every wind, indeed, that blows
I hear her yell.

She screams whenever monarchs meet,
And parliaments as well,
To bind the chains about her feet
And toll her knell.

And when the sovereign people cast
The votes they cannot spell,
Upon the pestilential blast
Her clamors swell.

For all to whom the power's given
To sway or to compel,
Among themselves apportion Heaven
And give her Hell.

1. To the Bartholdi Statue
2. Rimer
3. The New Decalogue
4. Decalogue
5. With a Book

Archibald Lampman Freedom ("Out of the heart of the city begotten")

Print

1360 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version