Freedom

Let men be free!

All violence is but the agony

Of caged things fighting blindly for the right

To be and breathe and burn their little hour.

Bare spirits—not debight

In smooth-set garments of philosophy;

But near earth forces, elemental, crude,

Scarce knowing their invicible, rude power;

Within the close of their primeval servitude

Half comatose.

Who, ravening for their depleted dower

Of so much sun and air and warmth and food,

And the same right to procreate and love

As the beasts have and the birds,

Strike wild—not having words

To parry with—at the cold force above.

Let men be free!

Hate is the price

Of servitude, paid covertly; and vice

But the unclean recoil of tortured flesh

Whipped through the centuries within a mesh

Spun out of priestly art.

Oh men, arise, be free!—Who breaks one bar

Of tyranny in this so bitter star

Has cleansed its bitterness in part.

Lola Ridge

(Picture: Captive, Nicholas Roerich)