Oh the heart is a free and a fetterless thing,—

A wave of the ocean, a bird on the wing!

Julia Pardoe (1816-1862): The Captive Greek Girl.

Curse on all laws but those which love has made!

Love, free as air at sight of human ties,

Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Eloisa to Abelard. Line 74.

I am as free as Nature first made man,

Ere the base laws of servitude began,

When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

John Dryden (1631-1701): The Conquest of Granada. Part i. Act i. Sc. 1.

But to the hero, when his sword

Has won the battle for the free,

Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;

And in its hollow tones are heard

The thanks of millions yet to be.

Alfred Bunn (1790-1860): Marco Bozzaris.

His heart and hand both open and both free;

For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows;

Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Troilus and Cressida. Act iv. Sc. 5.

Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious, and free,

First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Remember Thee.

Again to the battle, Achaians!

Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!

Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree,

It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Song of the Greeks.

And the star-spangled banner, oh long may it wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Henry Clay (1777-1852): The Star-Spangled Banner.

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny:

You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,

You cannot shut the windows of the sky

Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;

You cannot bar my constant feet to trace

The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve:

Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,

And I their toys to the great children leave:

Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave.

James Thomson (1700-1748): The Castle of Indolence. Canto ii. Stanza 3.

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,

Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place

A limit to the giant's unchained strength,

Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878): The Ages. xxxiii.

O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,

Art more engag'd! Help, angels! Make assay!

Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 3.

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 99.

We must be free or die who speak the tongue

That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold

Which Milton held.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): It is not to be thought of.

Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not,

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 76.

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 733.

In discourse more sweet;

For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense.

Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high

Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,

Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute;

And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 555.