COULD I choose the age and fortunate season When to be born, I would fly from the censure of your barren reason, And the scourges of your scorn: Could I take the tongue, and the land, and the station That to me were fit, I would make my life a force and an exultation, And you could not stifle it! But the thing most near to the freedom I covet Is the freedom I wrest From a time that would bar me from climbing above it, To seek the East in the West. I have dreamed of the forms of a nobler existence Than you give me here, And the beauty that lies afar in the dateless distance I would conquer, and bring more near. It is good, undowered with the bounty of Fortune, In the sun to stand: Let others excuse, and cringe, and importune, I will try the strength of my hand! If I fail, I shall fall not among the mistaken, Whom you dare deride: If I win, you shall hear, and see, and at last awaken To thank me because I defied! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LISTENERS by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE BURY ME IN A FREE LAND by FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER HARRY PLOUGHMAN by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN by RUDYARD KIPLING PSALM 26. JUDICA ME DEUS by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE ASCENSION OF A CITY FOG by FRANCES COFFIN BOAZ THE ROCK OF LIBERTY; A PILGRIM ODE, 1629-1920: 1. VISION by ABBIE FARWELL BROWN |