Freedom Transcendent
Freedom transcendent,
Freedom to go that I may will to stay,
Freedom of seas, yet not sailing seas rudderless,
Freedom to fly, yet not flying without wings,
Freedom to walk, yet not walking without feet,
Obedient to the laws of life, creating such laws myself,
I am not master or slave: I am in turn creator and creature,
Divesting myself of age, of youth, without travail.
Not being outwardly compelled to love that I may be inwardly compelled to love,
Not asking others, or all, to put arms about the cosmos, doing it myself,
Reproaching nothing and no one, driving no bargains with fate,
Knowing very well that I can give and take nothing to undo the balance of the infinite scale.
Freedom would not bind us to God through the church, to man through the state,
It would open the highways of a mutual suffrage,
It would make of equal parts the immortal compact.
Who of you may suppose that freedom is the city?
Freedom is but the gateway to the city!
Who of you deluded yourself with supposing that freedom was the song or the singer?
It is neither: it is the air which invites, receives, invests, singer and song!
Was it for freedom that her lovers suffered?
We did not fight to win and stay on the threshold:
All battle, thinking, victory, defeat, joy, pain, were keys of entrance and exit—
Having won them, they are ours to use at will: pass signs of farther adventure:
Last night I slept well housed, tonight I sleep out under the stars.
The winds are the walls of my house, the blue overhead its roof, the fluid seas and streams its foundations (foundations most solid—solidest of all):
I use these to my will, expanding, contracting, employing divine laws to the shifting needs of my soul.
Yet do I also live in brick houses and castle walls—
These do not confine me: they are themselves only wind, ether, wave, gravitation, for the time stilled to my purposes.
When the clock in the hallway strikes all concrete forms vanish:
My wand is more potent than Prospero's—I build and dismantle with unbaffled inerrancy
Cloud, iron, rock, or tyrant's throne.
Names of states, religions, social ideals, are swept away, disappear,
We are merged in supreme consciousness, swept on one stream,
We forget men and their differences in remembering man and his unity,
We honor all that is called life and all that is called death for its undeniable integrity,
There are no dregs in the cup, the full drink is none too copious for the drinker.
Freedom never treats with death and delay—its decrees are in eternal movement and unhesitating avowal,
Freedom offers no sacrifices, encourages no conformity,
Freedom is not jealous, its wishing is ever wholesome, out of good earth,
Freedom is reverence, and transmutes good deeds of good hearts into thrones and pulpits,
Freedom offers its parliament to universal membership, it disclaims all power to scorn or reject.
Freedom takes from embattling armies their bloodred swords—with her tears she washes them clean,
Freedom takes from legislatures traversing statutes—with her wisdom she plucks their sting,
Freedom treats man to man direct, refusing all intermediaries.
The powers of freedom are the powers of love,
Freedom is love's equal mate:
Freedom is wind and star and compass and faithful ship for all your hopes.
Freedom trusts: it is not afraid to approach unarmed him who is armed,
In jungle or mob, freedom safely weaves its thread, ascends, descends, plays in and out, is never defeated, never awed, always defeats, always awes.
Freedom is faith's crest, it is the arm about the universe, it is the hand touching every hand, it is the eye darting forth infinite treaties,
Freedom is that which grants and that which is granted:
It is giver and gift and the law that operates between them.
Freedom transcendent,
Withholding nothing, child of divine abandon,
Affection's spring, melody of poems, odor of roses, sap of trees,
Gravitation unstinting—unfailing law of requital,
I am bathed in the beams of your sun, I am at ease in the whirl of your tempest, your terms are exact but not exacting,
To the disturbed world falls your restoration:
The tide is not erratic, the whims of winds pause in their gay rebellion,
While you, O Freedom, having the ear of eternal counsel,
Persuade all prodigal hearts, atoms, home to their deserted spheres.
Freedom to go that I may will to stay,
Freedom of seas, yet not sailing seas rudderless,
Freedom to fly, yet not flying without wings,
Freedom to walk, yet not walking without feet,
Obedient to the laws of life, creating such laws myself,
I am not master or slave: I am in turn creator and creature,
Divesting myself of age, of youth, without travail.
Not being outwardly compelled to love that I may be inwardly compelled to love,
Not asking others, or all, to put arms about the cosmos, doing it myself,
Reproaching nothing and no one, driving no bargains with fate,
Knowing very well that I can give and take nothing to undo the balance of the infinite scale.
Freedom would not bind us to God through the church, to man through the state,
It would open the highways of a mutual suffrage,
It would make of equal parts the immortal compact.
Who of you may suppose that freedom is the city?
Freedom is but the gateway to the city!
Who of you deluded yourself with supposing that freedom was the song or the singer?
It is neither: it is the air which invites, receives, invests, singer and song!
Was it for freedom that her lovers suffered?
We did not fight to win and stay on the threshold:
All battle, thinking, victory, defeat, joy, pain, were keys of entrance and exit—
Having won them, they are ours to use at will: pass signs of farther adventure:
Last night I slept well housed, tonight I sleep out under the stars.
The winds are the walls of my house, the blue overhead its roof, the fluid seas and streams its foundations (foundations most solid—solidest of all):
I use these to my will, expanding, contracting, employing divine laws to the shifting needs of my soul.
Yet do I also live in brick houses and castle walls—
These do not confine me: they are themselves only wind, ether, wave, gravitation, for the time stilled to my purposes.
When the clock in the hallway strikes all concrete forms vanish:
My wand is more potent than Prospero's—I build and dismantle with unbaffled inerrancy
Cloud, iron, rock, or tyrant's throne.
Names of states, religions, social ideals, are swept away, disappear,
We are merged in supreme consciousness, swept on one stream,
We forget men and their differences in remembering man and his unity,
We honor all that is called life and all that is called death for its undeniable integrity,
There are no dregs in the cup, the full drink is none too copious for the drinker.
Freedom never treats with death and delay—its decrees are in eternal movement and unhesitating avowal,
Freedom offers no sacrifices, encourages no conformity,
Freedom is not jealous, its wishing is ever wholesome, out of good earth,
Freedom is reverence, and transmutes good deeds of good hearts into thrones and pulpits,
Freedom offers its parliament to universal membership, it disclaims all power to scorn or reject.
Freedom takes from embattling armies their bloodred swords—with her tears she washes them clean,
Freedom takes from legislatures traversing statutes—with her wisdom she plucks their sting,
Freedom treats man to man direct, refusing all intermediaries.
The powers of freedom are the powers of love,
Freedom is love's equal mate:
Freedom is wind and star and compass and faithful ship for all your hopes.
Freedom trusts: it is not afraid to approach unarmed him who is armed,
In jungle or mob, freedom safely weaves its thread, ascends, descends, plays in and out, is never defeated, never awed, always defeats, always awes.
Freedom is faith's crest, it is the arm about the universe, it is the hand touching every hand, it is the eye darting forth infinite treaties,
Freedom is that which grants and that which is granted:
It is giver and gift and the law that operates between them.
Freedom transcendent,
Withholding nothing, child of divine abandon,
Affection's spring, melody of poems, odor of roses, sap of trees,
Gravitation unstinting—unfailing law of requital,
I am bathed in the beams of your sun, I am at ease in the whirl of your tempest, your terms are exact but not exacting,
To the disturbed world falls your restoration:
The tide is not erratic, the whims of winds pause in their gay rebellion,
While you, O Freedom, having the ear of eternal counsel,
Persuade all prodigal hearts, atoms, home to their deserted spheres.
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