VII.

Hellas for Beauty, Rome for Order, stood, And Israel for the Good; Our message to the world is Liberty; Not the rude freedom of anarchic hordes, But reasoned kindness, whose benignant code Upon the emblazoned walls of history We carved with our good swords, And crimsoned with our blood. Last, from our eye we plucked the obscuring mote, (Not without tears expelled, and sharpest pain,) From swarthy limbs the galling chain With shock on mighty shock we smote, Whereby with clearer gaze we scan The heaven-writ message that we bear for man. Not ours to give, as erst the Genoese, Of a new world the keys; But of the prison-world ye knew before Hewing in twain the door, To thralls of custom and of circumstance We preach deliverance. O self-imprisoned ones, be free! be free! These fetters frail, by doting ages wrought Of basest metals--fantasy and fear, And ignorance dull, and fond credulity-- Have moldered, lo! this many a year; See, at a touch they part, and fall to naught! Yours is the heirship of the universe, Would ye but claim it, nor from eyes averse Let fall the tears of needless misery; Deign to be free!