For So I Created Them Free And

But Hail Thou Goddess Sage And Holy, Hail, Divinest Melancholy, Whose Saintly Visage Is Too Bright To Hit The Sense Of Human Sight, And Therefore To Our Weaker View O'erlaid With Black, Staid Wisdom's Hue.

How Oft, In Nations Gone Corrupt, And By Their Own Devices Brought Down To Servitude, That Man Chooses Bondage Before Liberty. Bondage With Ease Before Strenuous Liberty.

In Vain Doth Valour Bleed, While Avarice And Rapine Share The Land.

What Is Strength Without A Double Share Of Wisdom?

And May At Last My Weary Age Find Out The Peaceful Hermitage, The Hairy Gown And Mossy Cell, Where I May Sit And Rightly Spell Of Every Star That Heaven Doth Shew, And Every Herb That Sips The Dew, Till Old Experience To Attain To Something Like Prophetic Strain.