In all the freeborn nations of the air, Never did bird a spirit so mean and sordid bear As to exchange his native liberty Of soaring boldly up into the sky, His liberty to sing, to perch, or fly When, and wherever he thought good, And all his innocent pleasures of the wood, For a more plentiful or constant food. Nor ever did ambitious rage Make him into a painted cage Or the false forest of a well-hung room For honour and preferment come. Now, blessings on ye all, ye heroic race, Who keep their primitive powers and rights so well Though men and angels fell. Of all material lives the highest place To you is justly given, And ways and walks the nearest Heaven; Whilst wretched we, yet vain and proud, think fit To boast that we look up to it. Even to the universal tyrant Love You homage pay but once a year; None so degenerous and unbirdly prove, As his perpetual yoke to bear. None but a few unhappy household fowl, Whom human lordship does control; Who from their birth corrupted were By bondage, and by man’s example here. IV. He’s no small prince who every day Thus to himself can say, Now will I sleep, now eat, now sit, now walk, Now meditate alone, now with acquaintance talk; This I will do, here I will stay, Or, if my fancy call me away, My man and I will presently go ride (For we before have nothing to provide, Nor after are to render an account) To Dover, Berwick, or the Cornish Mount. If thou but a short journey take, As if thy last thou wert to make, Business must be despatched ere thou canst part. Nor canst thou stir unless there be A hundred horse and men to wait on thee, And many a mule, and many a cart: What an unwieldy man thou art! The Rhodian Colossus so A journey too might go. V. Where honour or where conscience does not bind, No other law shall shackle me? Slave to myself I will not be, Nor shall my future actions be confined By my own present mind. Who by resolves and vows engaged does stand For days that yet belong to fate, Does like an unthrift mortgage his estate Before it falls into his hand; The bondman of the cloister so All that he does receive does always owe. And still as time come in it goes away, Not to enjoy, but debts to pay. Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell Which his hour’s work, as well as hour’s does tell! Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell. VI.