Read "Independence" by Henry David Thoreau online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
My life more civil is and free / Than any civil polity.
Ye princes, keep your realms / And circumscribèd power, / Not wide as are my dreams, / Nor rich as is this hour.
What can ye give which I have not?
What can ye take which I have got?
Can ye defend the dangerless?
Can ye inherit nakedness?
To all true wants Time's ear is deaf, / Penurious States lend no relief / Out of their pelf:
But a free soul -- thank God -- / Can help itself.
Be sure your fate / Doth keep apart its state, -- / Not linked with any band, / Even the noblest in the land, --
In tented fields with cloth of gold / No place doth hold, / But is more chivalrous than they are, / And sigheth for a nobler war;
A finer strain its trumpet rings, / A brighter gleam its armor flings.
The life that I aspire to live, / No man proposeth me;
No trade upon the street[13] / Wears its emblazonry.