Page:May-day and other pieces, Emerson, 1867.djvu/82

 FREEDOM.

NCE I wished I might rehearse

Freedom's pæan in my verse,

That the slave who caught the strain

Should throb until he snapped his chain.

But the Spirit said, 'Not so;

Speak it not, or speak it low;

Name not lightly to be said,

Gift too precious to be prayed,

Passion not to be expressed

But by heaving of the breast:

Yet,—wouldst thou the mountain find

Where this deity is shrined,

Who gives to seas and sunset skies