ON THE ABUSE OF HUMAN POWER

What human power shall dare to bind

The mere opinions of the mind?

Must man at that tribunal bow

Which will no range to thought allow,

But his best powers would sway or sink,

And idly tells him what to Think?

Yes! there are such, and such are taught

To fetter every power of thought;

To chain the mind, or bend it down

To some mean system of their own,

And make religion's sacred cause

Amenable to human laws.

Has human power the simplest claim

Our hearts to sway, our thoughts to tame;

Shall she the rights of heaven assert,

Can she to falsehood truth convert,

Or truth again to falsehood turn,

And at the test of reason spurn?

All human sense, all craft must fail

And all its strength will nought avail,

When it attempts with efforts blind

To sway the independent mind,

Its spring to break, its pride to awe,

Or give to private judgment, law.

Oh impotent! and vile as vain,

They, who would native thought restrain!

As soon might they arrest the storm

Or take from fire the power to warm,

As man compel, by dint of might,

Old darkness to prefer to light.

No! leave the mind unchain'd and free,

And what they ought, mankind will be,

No hypocrite, no lurking fiend,

No artist to some evil end,

But good and great, benign and just,

As God and nature made them first.