[ { "title": "Liberty", "author": "James Whitcomb Riley", "lines": [ "New Castle, July 4, 1878", "", "or a hundred years the pulse of time", "Has throbbed for Liberty;", "For a hundred years the grand old clime", "Columbia has been free;", "For a hundred years our country's love,", "The Stars and Stripes, has waved above.", "", "Away far out on the gulf of years--", "Misty and faint and white", "Through the fogs of wrong--a sail appears,", "And the Mayflower heaves in sight,", "And drifts again, with its little flock", "Of a hundred souls, on Plymouth Rock.", "", "Do you see them there--as long, long since--", "Through the lens of History;", "Do you see them there as their chieftain prints", "In the snow his bended knee,", "And lifts his voice through the wintry blast", "In thanks for a peaceful home at last?", "", "Though the skies are dark and the coast is bleak,", "And the storm is wild and fierce,", "Its frozen flake on the upturned cheek", "Of the Pilgrim melts in tears,", "And the dawn that springs from the darkness there", "Is the morning light of an answered prayer.", "", "The morning light of the day of Peace", "That gladdens the aching eyes,", "And gives to the soul that sweet release", "That the present verifies,--", "Nor a snow so deep, nor a wind so chill", "To quench the flame of a freeman's will!", "", "II", "", "Days of toil when the bleeding hand", "Of the pioneer grew numb,", "When the untilled tracts of the barren land", "Where the weary ones had come", "Could offer nought from a fruitful soil", "To stay the strength of the stranger's toil.", "", "Days of pain, when the heart beat low,", "And the empty hours went by", "Pitiless, with the wail of woe", "And the moan of Hunger's cry--", "When the trembling hands upraised in prayer", "Had only the strength to hold them there.", "", "Days when the voice of hope had fled--", "Days when the eyes grown weak", "Were folded to, and the tears they shed", "Were frost on a frozen cheek--", "When the storm bent down from the skies and gave", "A shroud of snow for the Pilgrim's grave.", "", "Days at last when the smiling sun", "Glanced down from a summer sky,", "And a music rang where the rivers run,", "And the waves went laughing by;", "And the rose peeped over the mossy bank", "While the wild deer stood in the stream and drank.", "", "And the birds sang out so loud and good,", "In a symphony so clear", "And pure and sweet that the woodman stood", "With his ax upraised to hear,", "And to shape the words of the tongue unknown", "Into a language all his own--", "", "", "1", "", "'Sing! every bird, to-day!", "Sing for the sky so clear,", "And the gracious breath of the atmosphere", "Shall waft our cares away.", "Sing! sing! for the sunshine free;", "Sing through the land from sea to sea;", "Lift each voice in the highest key", "And sing for Liberty!'", "", "", "2", "", "'Sing for the arms that fling", "Their fetters in the dust", "And lift their hands in higher trust", "Unto the one Great King;", "Sing for the patriot heart and hand;", "Sing for the country they have planned;", "Sing that the world may understand", "This is Freedom's land!'", "", "", "3", "", "'Sing in the tones of prayer,", "Sing till the soaring soul", "Shall float above the world's control", "In freedom everywhere!", "Sing for the good that is to be,", "Sing for the eyes that are to see", "The land where man at last is free,", "O sing for liberty!'", "", "III", "", "A holy quiet reigned, save where the hand", "Of labor sent a murmur through the land,", "And happy voices in a harmony", "Taught every lisping breeze a melody.", "A nest of cabins, where the smoke upcurled", "A breathing incense to the other world.", "A land of languor from the sun of noon,", "That fainted slowly to the pallid moon,", "Till stars, thick-scattered in the garden-land", "Of Heaven by the great Jehovah's hand,", "Had blossomed into light to look upon", "The dusky warrior with his arrow drawn,", "As skulking from the covert of the night", "With serpent cunning and a fiend's delight,", "With murderous spirit, and a yell of hate", "The voice of Hell might tremble to translate:", "When the fond mother's tender lullaby", "Went quavering in shrieks all suddenly,", "And baby-lips were dabbled with the stain", "Of crimson at the bosom of the slain,", "And peaceful homes and fortunes ruined--lost", "In smoldering embers of the holocaust.", "Yet on and on, through years of gloom and strife,", "Our country struggled into stronger life;", "Till colonies, like footprints in the sand,", "Marked Freedom's pathway winding through the land--", "And not the footprints to be swept away", "Before the storm we hatched in Boston Bay,--", "But footprints where the path of war begun", "That led to Bunker Hill and Lexington,--", "For he who \"dared to lead where others dared", "To follow\" found the promise there declared", "Of Liberty, in blood of Freedom's host", "Baptized to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!", "", "Oh, there were times when every patriot breast", "Was riotous with sentiments expressed", "In tones that swelled in volume till the sound", "Of lusty war itself was well-nigh drowned.", "Oh, those were times when happy eyes with tears", "Brimmed o'er as all the misty doubts and fears", "Were washed away, and Hope with gracious mien,", "Reigned from her throne again a sovereign queen.", "Until at last, upon a day like this", "When flowers were blushing at the summer's kiss,", "And when the sky was cloudless as the face", "Of some sweet infant in its angel grace,--", "There came a sound of music, thrown afloat", "Upon the balmy air--a clanging note", "Reiterated from the brazen throat", "Of Independence Bell: A sound so sweet,", "The clamoring throngs of people in the streets", "Were stilled as at the solemn voice of prayer,", "And heads were bowed, and lips were moving there", "That made no sound--until the spell had passed,", "And then, as when all sudden comes the blast", "Of some tornado, came the cheer on cheer", "Of every eager voice, while far and near", "The echoing bells upon the atmosphere", "Set glorious rumors floating, till the ear", "Of every listening patriot tingled clear,", "And thrilled with joy and jubilee to hear.", "", "I", "", "'Stir all your echoes up,", "O Independence Bell,", "And pour from your inverted cup", "The song we love so well.", "", "'Lift high your happy voice,", "And swing your iron tongue", "Till syllables of praise rejoice", "That never yet were sung.", "", "'Ring in the gleaming dawn", "Of Freedom--Toll the knell", "Of Tyranny, and then ring on,", "O Independence Bell.--", "", "'Ring on, and drown the moan,", "Above the patriot slain,", "Till sorrow's voice shall catch the tone", "And join the glad refrain.", "", "'Ring out the wounds of wrong", "And rankle in the breast;", "Your music like a slumber-song", "Will lull revenge to rest.", "", "'Ring out from Occident", "To Orient, and peal", "From continent to continent", "The mighty joy you feel.", "", "'Ring! Independence Bell!", "Ring on till worlds to be", "Shall listen to the tale you tell", "Of love and Liberty!'", "", "IV", "", "O Liberty--the dearest word", "A bleeding country ever heard,--", "We lay our hopes upon thy shrine", "And offer up our lives for thine.", "You gave us many happy years", "Of peace and plenty ere the tears", "A mourning country wept were dried", "Above the graves of those who died", "Upon thy threshold. And again", "When newer wars were bred, and men", "Went marching in the cannon's breath", "And died for thee and loved the death,", "While, high above them, gleaming bright,", "The dear old flag remained in sight,", "And lighted up their dying eyes", "With smiles that brightened paradise.", "O Liberty, it is thy power", "To gladden us in every hour", "Of gloom, and lead us by thy hand", "As little children through a land", "Of bud and blossom; while the days", "Are filled with sunshine, and thy praise", "Is warbled in the roundelays", "Of joyous birds, and in the song", "Of waters, murmuring along", "The paths of peace, whose flowery fringe", "Has roses finding deeper tinge", "Of crimson, looking on themselves", "Reflected--leaning from the shelves", "Of cliff and crag and mossy mound", "Of emerald splendor shadow-drowned.--", "We hail thy presence, as you come", "With bugle blast and rolling drum,", "And booming guns and shouts of glee", "Commingled in a symphony", "That thrills the worlds that throng to see", "The glory of thy pageantry.", "0And with thy praise, we breathe a prayer", "That God who leaves you in our care", "May favor us from this day on", "With thy dear presence--till the dawn", "Of Heaven, breaking on thy face,", "Lights up thy first abiding place." ], "linecount": "224" }, { "title": "The Flower of Liberty", "author": "Oliver Wendell Holmes", "lines": [ "WHAT flower is this that greets the morn,", "Its hues from Heaven so freshly born?", "With burning star and flaming band", "It kindles all the sunset land:", "Oh tell us what its name may be,--", "Is this the Flower of Liberty?", "", "It is the banner of the free,", "The starry Flower of Liberty!", "", "In savage Nature's far abode", "Its tender seed our fathers sowed;", "The storm-winds rocked its swelling bud,", "Its opening leaves were streaked with blood,", "Till lo! earth's tyrants shook to see", "The full-blown Flower of Liberty!", "", "Then hail the banner of the free,", "The starry Flower of Liberty!", "", "Behold its streaming rays unite,", "One mingling flood of braided light,--", "The red that fires the Southern rose,", "With spotless white from Northern snows,", "And, spangled o'er its azure, see", "The sister Stars of Liberty!", "", "Then hail the banner of the free,", "The starry Flower of Liberty!", "", "The blades of heroes fence it round,", "Where'er it springs is holy ground;", "From tower and dome its glories spread;", "It waves where lonely sentries tread;", "It makes the land as ocean free,", "And plants an empire on the sea!", "", "Then hail the banner of the free,", "The starry Flower of Liberty!", "", "Thy sacred leaves, fair Freedom's flower,", "Shall ever float on dome and tower,", "To all their heavenly colors true,", "In blackening frost or crimson dew,--", "And God love us as we love thee,", "Thrice holy Flower of Liberty!", "", "Then hail the banner of the free,", "The starry FLOWER OF LIBERTY!" ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "Sonnet 41: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,", "When I am sometime absent from thy heart,", "Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,", "For still temptation follows where thou art.", "Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,", "Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;", "And when a woman woos, what woman's son", "Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd?", "Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,", "And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,", "Who lead thee in their riot even there", "Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:--", " Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,", " Thine by thy beauty being false to me." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Liberty", "author": "Edward Thomas", "lines": [ "THE last light has gone out of the world, except", "This moonlight lying on the grass like frost", "Beyond the brink of the tall elm's shadow", "It is as if everything else had slept", "Many an age, unforgotten and lost", "The men that were, the things done, long ago,", "All I have thought; and but the moon and I", "Live yet and here stand idle over the grave", "Where all is buried. Both have liberty", "To dream what we could do if we were free", "To do some thing we had desired long,", "The moon and I. There's none less free than who", "Does nothing and has nothing else to do,", "Being free only for what is not to his mind,", "And nothing is to his mind. If every hour", "Like this one passing that I have spent among", "The wiser others when I have forgot", "To wonder whether I was free or not,", "Were piled before me, and not lost behind,", "And I could take and carry them away", "I should be rich; or if I had the power", "To wipe out every one and not again", "Regret, I should be rich to be so poor.", "And yet I still am half in love with pain,", "With what is imperfect, with both tears and mirth,", "With things that have an end, with life and earth,", "And this moon that leaves me dark within the door." ], "linecount": "27" }, { "title": "An Ode, Written October, 1819, Before the Spaniards Had Recovered Their Liberty", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Arise, arise, arise!", "There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread;", "Be your wounds like eyes", "To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead.", "What other grief were it just to pay?", "Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they;", "Who said they were slain on the battle day?", "", "Awaken, awaken, awaken!", "The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes;", "Be the cold chains shaken", "To the dust where your kindred repose, repose:", "Their bones in the grave will start and move,", "When they hear the voices of those they love,", "Most loud in the holy combat above.", "", "Wave, wave high the banner!", "When Freedom is riding to conquest by:", "Though the slaves that fan her", "Be Famine and Toil, giving sigh for sigh.", "And ye who attend her imperial car,", "Lift not your hands in the banded war,", "But in her defence whose children ye are.", "", "Glory, glory, glory,", "To those who have greatly suffered and done!", "Never name in story", "Was greater than that which ye shall have won.", "Conquerors have conquered their foes alone,", "Whose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrown", "Ride ye, more victorious, over your own.", "", "Bind, bind every brow", "With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine:", "Hide the blood-stains now", "With hues which sweet Nature has made divine:", "Green strength, azure hope, and eternity:", "But let not the pansy among them be;", "Ye were injured, and that means memory." ], "linecount": "35" }, { "title": "Ode to Liberty", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Yet, Freedom, yet, thy banner, torn but flying,", "Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind.--BYRON.", "", "A glorious people vibrated again", "The lightning of the nations: Liberty", "From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain,", "Scattering contagious fire into the sky,", "Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay,", "And in the rapid plumes of song", "Clothed itself, sublime and strong;", "As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among,", "Hovering inverse o'er its accustomed prey;", "Till from its station in the Heaven of fame", "The Spirit's whirlwind rapped it, and the ray", "Of the remotest sphere of living flame", "Which paves the void was from behind it flung,", "As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came", "A voice out of the deep: I will record the same.", "", "The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth:", "The burning stars of the abyss were hurled", "Into the depths of Heaven. The daedal earth,", "That island in the ocean of the world,", "Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air:", "But this divinest universe", "Was yet a chaos and a curse,", "For thou wert not: but, power from worst producing worse,", "The spirit of the beasts was kindled there,", "And of the birds, and of the watery forms,", "And there was war among them, and despair", "Within them, raging without truce or terms:", "The bosom of their violated nurse", "Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms,", "And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms.", "", "Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied", "His generations under the pavilion", "Of the Sun's throne: palace and pyramid,", "Temple and prison, to many a swarming million", "Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves.", "This human living multitude", "Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude,", "For thou wert not; but o'er the populous solitude,", "Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves,", "Hung Tyranny; beneath, sate deified", "The sister-pest, congregator of slaves;", "Into the shadow of her pinions wide", "Anarchs and priests, who feed on gold and blood", "Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed,", "Drove the astonished herds of men from every side.", "", "The nodding promontories, and blue isles,", "And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves", "Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles", "Of favouring Heaven: from their enchanted caves", "Prophetic echoes flung dim melody.", "On the unapprehensive wild", "The vine, the corn, the olive mild,", "Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled;", "And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea,", "Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain,", "Like aught that is which wraps what is to be,", "Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein", "Of Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child,", "Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain", "Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the Aegean main", "", "Athens arose: a city such as vision", "Builds from the purple crags and silver towers", "Of battlemented cloud, as in derision", "Of kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors", "Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it;", "Its portals are inhabited", "By thunder-zoned winds, each head", "Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,--", "A divine work! Athens, diviner yet,", "Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will", "Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set;", "For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill", "Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead", "In marble immortality, that hill", "Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle.", "", "Within the surface of Time's fleeting river", "Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay", "Immovably unquiet, and for ever", "It trembles, but it cannot pass away!", "The voices of thy bards and sages thunder", "With an earth-awakening blast", "Through the caverns of the past:", "(Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast:)", "A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder,", "Which soars where Expectation never flew,", "Rending the veil of space and time asunder!", "One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew;", "One Sun illumines Heaven; one Spirit vast", "With life and love makes chaos ever new,", "As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew.", "", "Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest,", "Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Maenad,", "She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest", "From that Elysian food was yet unweaned;", "And many a deed of terrible uprightness", "By thy sweet love was sanctified;", "And in thy smile, and by thy side,", "Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died.", "But when tears stained thy robe of vestal-whiteness,", "And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne,", "Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness,", "The senate of the tyrants: they sunk prone", "Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighed", "Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone", "Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown", "", "From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill,", "Or piny promontory of the Arctic main,", "Or utmost islet inaccessible,", "Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign,", "Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks,", "And every Naiad's ice-cold urn,", "To talk in echoes sad and stern", "Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn?", "For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks", "Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep.", "What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks", "Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep,", "When from its sea of death, to kill and burn,", "The Galilean serpent forth did creep,", "And made thy world an undistinguishable heap.", "", "A thousand years the Earth cried, 'Where art thou?'", "And then the shadow of thy coming fell", "On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow:", "And many a warrior-peopled citadel.", "Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep,", "Arose in sacred Italy,", "Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea", "Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty;", "That multitudinous anarchy did sweep", "And burst around their walls, like idle foam,", "Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep", "Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb", "Dissonant arms; and Art, which cannot die,", "With divine wand traced on our earthly home", "Fit imagery to pave Heaven's everlasting dome.", "", "Thou huntress swifter than the Moon! thou terror", "Of the world's wolves! thou bearer of the quiver,", "Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error,", "As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever", "In the calm regions of the orient day!", "Luther caught thy wakening glance;", "Like lightning, from his leaden lance", "Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance", "In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay;", "And England's prophets hailed thee as their queen,", "In songs whose music cannot pass away,", "Though it must flow forever: not unseen", "Before the spirit-sighted countenance", "Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene", "Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien.", "", "The eager hours and unreluctant years", "As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood.", "Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears,", "Darkening each other with their multitude,", "And cried aloud, 'Liberty!' Indignation", "Answered Pity from her cave;", "Death grew pale within the grave,", "And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save!", "When like Heaven's Sun girt by the exhalation", "Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise.", "Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation", "Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies", "At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave,", "Men started, staggering with a glad surprise,", "Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes.", "", "Thou Heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then", "In ominous eclipse? a thousand years", "Bred from the slime of deep Oppression's den.", "Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears.", "Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away;", "How like Bacchanals of blood", "Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood", "Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred brood!", "When one, like them, but mightier far than they,", "The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers,", "Rose: armies mingled in obscure array,", "Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred bowers", "Of serene Heaven. He, by the past pursued,", "Rests with those dead, but unforgotten hours,", "Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers.", "", "England yet sleeps: was she not called of old?", "Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder", "Vesuvius wakens Aetna, and the cold", "Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder:", "O'er the lit waves every Aeolian isle", "From Pithecusa to Pelorus", "Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus:", "They cry, 'Be dim; ye lamps of Heaven suspended o'er us!'", "Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile", "And they dissolve; but Spain's were links of steel,", "Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file.", "Twins of a single destiny! appeal", "To the eternal years enthroned before us", "In the dim West; impress us from a seal,", "All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal.", "", "Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead", "Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff,", "His soul may stream over the tyrant's head;", "Thy victory shall be his epitaph,", "Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine,", "King-deluded Germany,", "His dead spirit lives in thee.", "Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free!", "And thou, lost Paradise of this divine", "And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness!", "Thou island of eternity! thou shrine", "Where Desolation, clothed with loveliness,", "Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy,", "Gather thy blood into thy heart; repress", "The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces.", "", "Oh, that the free would stamp the impious name", "Of KING into the dust! or write it there,", "So that this blot upon the page of fame", "Were as a serpent's path, which the light air", "Erases, and the flat sands close behind!", "Ye the oracle have heard:", "Lift the victory-flashing sword.", "And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word,", "Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind", "Into a mass, irrefragably firm,", "The axes and the rods which awe mankind;", "The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm", "Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred;", "Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term,", "To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm.", "", "Oh, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle", "Such lamps within the dome of this dim world,", "That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle", "Into the hell from which it first was hurled,", "A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure;", "Till human thoughts might kneel alone,", "Each before the judgement-throne", "Of its own aweless soul, or of the Power unknown!", "Oh, that the words which make the thoughts obscure", "From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew", "From a white lake blot Heaven's blue portraiture,", "Were stripped of their thin masks and various hue", "And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own,", "Till in the nakedness of false and true", "They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due!", "", "He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever", "Can be between the cradle and the grave", "Crowned him the King of Life. Oh, vain endeavour!", "If on his own high will, a willing slave,", "He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor", "What if earth can clothe and feed", "Amplest millions at their need,", "And power in thought be as the tree within the seed?", "Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor,", "Driving on fiery wings to Nature's throne,", "Checks the great mother stooping to caress her,", "And cries: 'Give me, thy child, dominion", "Over all height and depth'? if Life can breed", "New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan,", "Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one!", "", "Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave", "Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star", "Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave,", "Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car", "Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame;", "Comes she not, and come ye not,", "Rulers of eternal thought,", "To judge, with solemn truth, life's ill-apportioned lot?", "Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame", "Of what has been, the Hope of what will be?", "O Liberty! if such could be thy name", "Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee:", "If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought", "By blood or tears, have not the wise and free", "Wept tears, and blood like tears?--The solemn harmony", "", "Paused, and the Spirit of that mighty singing", "To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn;", "Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging", "Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn,", "Sinks headlong through the aereal golden light", "On the heavy-sounding plain,", "When the bolt has pierced its brain;", "As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain;", "As a far taper fades with fading night,", "As a brief insect dies with dying day,--", "My song, its pinions disarrayed of might,", "Drooped; o'er it closed the echoes far away", "Of the great voice which did its flight sustain,", "As waves which lately paved his watery way", "Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play." ], "linecount": "287" }, { "title": "Cancelled Passage of the Ode to Liberty", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Within a cavern of man's trackless spirit", "Is throned an Image, so intensely fair", "That the adventurous thoughts that wander near it", "Worship, and as they kneel, tremble and wear", "The splendour of its presence, and the light", "Penetrates their dreamlike frame", "Till they become charged with the strength of flame." ], "linecount": "7" }, { "title": "Liberty", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "The fiery mountains answer each other;", "Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;", "The tempestuous oceans awake one another,", "And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter's throne,", "When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown.", "", "From a single cloud the lightening flashes,", "Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around,", "Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,", "An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound", "Is bellowing underground.", "", "But keener thy gaze than the lightening's glare,", "And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp;", "Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare", "Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp", "To thine is a fen-fire damp.", "", "From billow and mountain and exhalation", "The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast;", "From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,", "From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast,--", "And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night", "In the van of the morning light." ], "linecount": "21" } ]