Explore "Liberty" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Let there be Liberty!' God said, and, lo! / The red skies all were luminous. The glow / Struck first Columbia's kindling mountain peaks / One hundred and eleven years ago!"
So sang a patriot whom once I saw / Descending Bunker's holy hill. With awe / I noted that he shone with sacred light, / Like Moses with the tables of the Law.
One hundred and eleven years? O small / And paltry period compared with all / The tide of centuries that flowed and ebbed / To etch Yosemite's divided wall!
Ah, Liberty, they sing you always young / Whose harps are in your adoration strung / (Each swears you are his countrywoman, too, / And speak no language but his mother tongue).
And truly, lass, although with shout and horn / Man has all-hailed you from creation's morn, / I cannot think you old -- I think, indeed, / You are by twenty centuries unborn.
1886.