Thoreau, 1861

Tis peaceful in the forest glade
Quiet shade
Millponds dripping under yonder elm
Full and trim
Gently lapping at her blossomed fronds
Early dawn
Fly and locust are our sounds
All around
Nowhere hustle of the crowd
In the Town.

And there is a freedom here
You can hear
Tis the freedom of the wolf
Or the bear
How they travel where they would
Without care
And they do not deal in goods
Or in wares
For them silver has no use
Nor a care.

For to tax a man’s own life
Any price
Is to take away his soul
For the Poll
I’ve no manner of estate
As the Great
Whyfore tax me as a man?
Tis a sham
And to protest this travail
Let me say
I shall gladly go to jail
Without bail.

And to disobey the law
Of the land
Is at last to see oneself
As a man
For no power in this world
Bad or good
Can overturn the truth
That is God.

Governments throughout the world
If they can
Seek to stifle all that’s good
In a man
Disobedience of Force
That is wrong
May well put a man that’s weak
Against strong
But a great mob of weak men
All alone
Can itself throw mighty Kings
From their thrones.

And should the power of Gold
Prove to strong
Leading men to enslave
Which is wrong
We can see the fight
That is brewing
The conflict of our race
Now ensuing
May well turn out our Nation’s
Undoing.

Mighty armies now shed blood
On our soil
They do themselves no good
For their toil
A million men may die
In this fight
Without doing anything
That is right
Modern man must understand
If he can
Both blood and gold to be
Just a sham.

© Copyright Jerome Raymond Kraus 2005