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He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain
That hellish foes confederate for his harm
Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green withes.
He looks abroad into the varied field

Of nature, and though poor perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His are the mountains, and the valleys his,
And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,

And smiling say," My Father made them all!"
Are they not his by a peculiar right,

And by an emphasis of interest his,

Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy,

Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love
That planned, and built, and still upholds a world
So clothed with beauty, for rebellious man?
Yea, ye may fill your garners, ye that reap
The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good

In senseless riot; but ye will not find

In feast or in the chase, in song or dance,

A liberty like his, who unimpeached
Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong
Appropriates nature as his Father's work,
And has a richer use of yours, than you.
He is indeed a freeman; - free by birth
Of no mean city, planned or e'er the hills
Were built, the fountains opened, or the sea
With all his roaring multitude of waves.
His freedom is the same in every state;
And no condition of this changeful life,

So manifold in cares, whose every day
Brings its own evil with it, makes it less;
For he has wings that neither sickness, pain,
Nor penury can cripple or confine,

No nook so narrow but he spreads them there
With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds
His body bound, but knows not what a range
His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain,
And that to bind him is a vain attempt

Whom God delights in, and in whom He dwells.

The meddler, man, hath left the elements

In peace the plowman breaks the clods no more;
The miner labors not, with steel and fire,

To rend the rock, and he that hews the stone,
And he that fells the forest, he that guides
The loaded wain, and the poor animal
That drags it, have forgotten, for a time,
Their toils, and share the quiet of the earth.

Thou pausest not in thine allotted task,
O darkling River! Through the night I hear
Thy wavelets rippling on the pebbly beach;
I hear thy current stir the rustling sedge,
That skirts thy bed; thou intermittest not
Thine everlasting journey, drawing on

A silvery train from many a woodland spring
And mountain-brook. The dweller by thy side,
Who moored his little boat upon thy beach,
Though all the waters that upbore it then
Have slid away o'er night, shall find, at morn,
Thy channel filled with water freshly drawn

From distant cliffs, and hollows where the rill
Comes up amid the water-flags. All night

Thou givest moisture to the thirsty roots
Of the lithe willow and o'erhanging plane,
And cherishest the herbage of thy bank,
Spotted with little flowers, and sendest up
Perpetually the vapors from thy face,

To steep the hills with dew, or darken heaven
With drifting clouds, that trail the shadowy shower.

O River! darkling River! what a voice

Is that thou utterest while all else is still,-
The ancient voice that, centuries ago,
Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yet

A weedy solitude by Tiber's stream !

How many, at this hour, along thy course,
Slumber to thine eternal murmurings,

That mingle with the utterance of their dreams!
At dead of night the child awakes, and hears
Thy soft, familiar dashings, and is soothed,
And sleeps again. An airy multitude
Of little echoes, all unheard by day,
Faintly repeat, till morning, after thee,

The story of thine endless goings forth.

Yet there are those who lie beside thy bed

For whom thou once didst rear the bowers that screen

Thy margin, and didst water the green fields;

And now there is no night so still that they

Can hear thy lapse; their slumbers, were thy voice
Louder than Ocean's, it could never break.

For them the early violet no more
Opens upon thy bank, nor, for their eyes,
Glitter the crimson pictures of the clouds
Upon thy bosom when the sun goes down.
Their memories are abroad, the memories
Of those who last were gathered to the earth,
Lingering within the homes in which they sat,

Hovering above the paths in which they walked,
Haunting them like a presence. Even now
They visit many a dreamer in the forms

They walked in, ere at last they wore the shroud.
And eyes there are which will not close to dream,
For weeping and for thinking of the grave,
The new-made grave, and the pale one within.
These memories and these sorrows all shall fade,
And pass away, and fresher memories

And newer sorrows come and dwell awhile
Beside thy borders, and, in turn, depart.

On glide thy waters, till at last they flow
Beneath the windows of the populous town,
And all night long give back the gleam of lamps,
And glimmer with the trains of light that stream
From halls where dancers whirl. A dimmer ray
Touches thy surface from the silent room

In which they tend the sick, or gather round
The dying; and the slender, steady beam
Comes from the little chamber in the roof,
Where, with a feverous crimson on her cheek,
The solitary damsel, dying, too,

Plies the quick needle till the stars grow pale.
There, close beside the haunts of revel, stand
The blank, unlighted windows, where the poor,
In hunger and in darkness, wake till morn.
There, drowsily, on the half-conscious ear
Of the dull watchman, pacing on the wharf,
Falls the soft ripple of the waves that strike
On the moored bark; but guiltier listeners
Are nigh, the prowlers of the night, who steal
From shadowy nook to shadowy nook, and start
If other sounds than thine are in the air.

O, glide away from these abodes, that bring Pollution to thy channel, and make foul Thy once clear current; summon thy quick waves