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 BALLAD OF JUDAS ISCARIOT by ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN WOODNOTES: 2 by RALPH WALDO EMERSON TO JOHN DONNE (1) by BEN JONSON TO LADY ANNE HAMILTON by WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER ODES: BOOK 2: ODE 3. TO THE CUCKOO by MARK AKENSIDE |