TO LIBERTY.

BY COLERIDGE.

Ye clouds! that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may control!

Ye ocean-waves! that wheresoe'er ye roll,
Yield homage only to eternal laws!
Ye woods that listen to the night-bird's singing,
Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined,
Save when your own imperious branches, swinging,

Have made a solemn music of the wind!
Where, like a man beloved of God,
Through glooms, which woodman never trod,

How oft, pursuing fancies holy,.
My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound

Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound 0, ye loud waves! and 0, ye forests high !

And 0, ye clouds that far above me soar'd!
Thou rising sun! thou blue rejoicing sky!

Yea, every thing that is, and will be free!
Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be,
With what deep worship I have still adored

The spirit of divinest Liberty.-
O Liberty! with profitless endeavour
Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour;
But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor

Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power

Alike from all howe'er they praise thee,
(Not prayer, nor boastful name delays thee,)
Alike from priestcraft's harpy minions,
And factious blasphemy's obscener slaves,

Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions,
The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of
- the waves!
And there I felt thee !-on that sea-cliff's verge,
Whose pines scarce travelled by the breeze

above,
Had made one murmur with the distant surge
Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,
And shot my being through earth, sea, and air,

Possessing all things with intensest love,
O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there.

YA

RESTRAINT NO WHERE ENDURABLE.

BY DRYDEN.

Ou give me liberty!
For were even paradise my prison,
Still I should long to leap the crystal walls.

EFFECTS OF FREEDOM.

BY COWPER.

FREEDOM has a thousand charms to show, That slaves, howe'er contented, never know. The mind attains, beneath her happy reign, The growth that nature meant she should attain : The varied fields of science, ever new, Opening, and wider opening on her view, She ventures onward with a prosperous force, While no base fear impedes her in her course. Heligion, richest favour of the skies, Stands most revealed before the freeman's eyes ; Mo shades of superstition blot the day, Liberty chases all that gloom away; The soul emancipated, unoppress'd, Free to prove all things, and hold fast the best, Learns much; and to a thousand listening minds Communicates with joy the good she finds : Courage in arms, and ever prompt to show His manly forehead to the fiercest foe; Glorious in war, but for the sake of peace, His spirits rising as his toils increase, Guards well what arts and industry have won, And Freedom claims him for her first-born son. Slaves fight for what were better cast awayThe chain that binds them, and a tyrant's sway

But they, that fight for freedom, undertake
The noblest cause mankind can have at stake:
Religion, virtue, truth, whate'er we call
A blessing-freedom is the pledge of all.
O Liberty! the prisoner's pleasing dream,
The poet's muse, his passion, and his theme;
Genius is thine, and thou art Fancy's nurse;
Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse ;
Heroic song from thy free touch acquires
Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires:
Place me where Winter breathes his keenest air,
And I will sing, if Liberty be there;
And I will sing at Liberty's dear feet,
In Afric's torrid zone, or India's fiercest heat.

Yet, freedom ! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying,
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind ;
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms; and the rind,
Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth
But the sap lasts, -and still the seed we find
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the north ;
So shall a bitter spring less bitter fruit bring forth.

Byron.

TO FREEDOM.

BY JOEL BARLOW.

Sun of the moral world ! effulgent source of man's best wisdom and his steadiest force, Soul-searching Freedom! here assume thy stand, And radiate hence to every distant land: Point out and prove how all the scenes of strife, The shock of states, the impassion'd broils of life, Spring from unequal sway; and how they fly Before the splendour of thy peaceful eye; Unfold at last the genuine social plan, The mind's full scope, the dignity of man, Bold nature, bursting through her long disguise, And nations daring to be just and wise. Yes ! righteous Freedom, heaven and earth and sea Yield or withhold their various gifts for the Protected Industry beneath thy reign Leads all the virtues in her filial train; Courageous Probity, with brow serene, And Temperance calm presents her placid mien; Contentment, Moderation, Labour, Art, Mould the new man and humanize his heart; To public plenty private ease dilates, Domestic peace to harmony of states. Protected Industry, careering far, Detects the cause and cures the rage of war, And sweeps, with forceful arm, to their last graves, Kings from the earth and pirates from the waves.