Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. WHO WILL LEARN FREEDOM?, by EDWARD CARPENTER Poet's Biography First Line: Who will learn freedom? Last Line: You were my christ to me. Subject(s): Freedom; Liberty | ||||||||
WHO will learn Freedom? Lo! as the air blows wafting the clinging aromatic scent of the balsam poplar, dear to me, Or the sun-warm fragrance of wallflowers, tarrying here for a moment, then floating far down the road and away; Or as the early light edging the hills, so calm, unprejudiced, open to all; So shall you find what you seek in men and womenyour passage and swift deliverance. As when one opens a door after long confinement in the houseso out of your own plans and purposes escaping, Out of the many mirror-lined chambers of self (grand though they be, but O how dreary!) in which you have hitherto spent your life In these behold once more the incommunicable freedom of the sky, the green hills, the woods and the waters, To pass in and out for ever, having abandoned your own objects, looking calmly upon them, as though they did not exist. Now who so despised and lost, but what shall be my Savior? Is there one yet sick and suffering in the whole world? or deformed, condemned, degraded? Thither hastening I am at restfor this one can absolve me. O I am greedy of loveall all are beautiful to me! You my deliverers every onefrom death, from sin, from evil I float, I dissolve in you! O bars of self you cannot shut me now. O frailest child, O blackest criminal, Whoe'er you are I never can repay youthough the world despise you, you are glorious to me; For you have saved me from myself, You delivered me when I was in prison I passed through you into heaven, You were my Christ to me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOVE THE WILD SWAN by ROBINSON JEFFERS AFTER TENNYSON by AMBROSE BIERCE QUARTET IN F MAJOR by WILLIAM MEREDITH CROSS THAT LINE by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE EMANCIPATION by ELIZABETH ALEXANDER AS A MOULD FOR SOME FAIR FORM by EDWARD CARPENTER |
|