But there is yet a liberty unsung By poets, and by senators unpraised, Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the power Of earth and hell confederate take away; A liberty, which persecution, fraud, Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind, Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more: ’Tis liberty of heart, derived from heaven, Bought with His blood who gave it to mankind, And sealed with the same token. It is held By charter, and that charter sanctioned sure By the unimpeachable and awful oath And promise of a God. His other gifts All bear the royal stamp that speaks them His, And are august, but this transcends them all. His other works, this visible display Of all-creating energy and might, Are grand, no doubt, and worthy of the Word That, finding an interminable space Unoccupied, has filled the void so well, And made so sparkling what was dark before. But these are not His glory. Man, ’tis true, Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene, Might well suppose the Artificer Divine Meant it eternal, had He not Himself Pronounced it transient, glorious as it is, And still designing a more glorious far, Doomed it, as insufficient for His praise. These, therefore, are occasional, and pass; Formed for the confutation of the fool Whose lying heart disputes against a God; That office served, they must be swept away. Not so the labours of His love; they shine In other heavens than these that we behold, And fade not. There is Paradise that fears No forfeiture, and of its fruits He sends Large prelibation oft to saints below. Of these the first in order, and the pledge And confident assurance of the rest, Is liberty; a flight into His arms Ere yet mortality’s fine threads give way, A clear escape from tyrannising lust, And fill immunity from penal woe.