And all that freedom’s highest aims can reach

Is but to lay proportion’d loads on each:

Hence, should one order disproportion’d grow,

Its double weight must ruin all below.

Oh, then, how blind to all that truth requires,

Who think it freedom when a part aspires!

Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,

Except when fast-approaching danger warms;

But, when contending chiefs blockade the throne,

Contracting regal power, to stretch their own—

own—

When I behold a factious band agree

To call it freedom when themselves are free—

free—

Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law—

law—

26

The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,

Pillag’d from slaves, to purchase slaves at home—

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