Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FREEDOM (1), by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Are we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be Last Line: To europe, entering her blood-red eclipse. Subject(s): Freedom; Patriotism; Liberty | ||||||||
ARE we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea, Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest, As on an altar, -- can it be that ye Have wasted inspiration on dead ears, Dulled with the too familiar clank of chains? The people's heart is like a harp for years Hung where some petrifying torrent rains Its slow-incrusting spray: the stiffened chords Faint and more faint make answer to the tears That drip upon them: idle are all words: Only a silver plectrum wakes the tone Deep buried 'neath that ever-thickening stone. We are not free: Freedom doth not consist In musing with our faces toward the Past, While petty cares, and crawling interests, twist Their spider-threads about us, which at last Grow strong as iron chains, to cramp and bind In formal narrowness heart, soul, and mind. Freedom is recreated year by year, In hearts wide open on the Godward side, In souls calm-cadenced as the whirling sphere, In minds that sway the future like a tide. No broadest creeds can hold her, and no codes; She chooses men for her august abodes, Building them fair and fronting to the dawn; Yet, when we seek her, we but find a few Light footprints, leading morn-ward through the dew: Before the day had risen, she was gone. And we must follow: swiftly runs she on, And, if our steps should slacken in despair, Half turns her face, half smiles through golden hair, Forever yielding, never wholly won: That is not love which pauses in the race Two close-linked names on fleeting sand to trace; Freedom gained yesterday is no more ours; Men gather but dry seeds of last year's flowers; Still there's a charm ungranted, still a grace, Still rosy Hope, the free, the unattained, Makes us Possession's languid hand let fall; 'T is but a fragment of ourselves is gained, -- The Future brings us more, but never all. And, as the finder of some unknown realm, Mounting a summit whence he thinks to see On either side of him the imprisoning sea, Beholds, above the clouds that overwhelm The valley-land, peak after snowy peak Stretch out of sight, each like a silver helm Beneath its plume of smoke, sublime and bleak, And what he thought an island finds to be A continent to him first oped, -- so we Can from our height of Freedom look along A boundless future, ours if we be strong; Or if we shrink, better remount our ships And, fleeing God's express design, trace back The hero-freighted Mayflower's prophet-track To Europe, entering her blood-red eclipse. | 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 AFTER THE BURIAL by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |
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