Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/56

And never hear a bird save when they cage it?
Is this the freedom of Thy truth? Ah, woe
For those who see a higher, nobler law
Than his, the Crucified, if this be so!

O, man's blind hope—Prometheus, thine the gift—
That bids him live when reason bids him die!
We cling to this, as sailors to a spar—
We see that this is Truth: that men are one,
Nor king nor slave among them save by law;
We see that law is crime, save God's sweet code
That laps the world in freedom: trees and men
And every life around us, days and seasons,
All for their natural order on the planet,
To live their lives, an hour, a hundred years,
Equal, content, and free—nor curse their souls
With trade's malign unrest, with books that breed
Disparity, contempt for those who cannot read;
With cities full of toil and sin and sorrow,
Climbing the devil-builded hill called Progress!