Independence

My life more civil is and free

Than any civil polity.

Ye princes, keep your realms

And circumscribèd power,

Not wide as are my dreams,

Nor rich as is this hour.

What can ye give which I have not?

What can ye take which I have got?

Can ye defend the dangerless?

Can ye inherit nakedness?

To all true wants Time’s ear is deaf,

Penurious states lend no relief

Out of their pelf:

But a free soul — thank God —

Can help itself.

Be sure your fate

Doth keep apart its state,

Not linked with any band,

Even the noblest of the land;

In tented fields with cloth of gold

No place doth hold,

But is more chivalrous than they are,

And sigheth for a nobler war;

A finer strain its trumpet sings,

A brighter gleam its armor flings.

The life that I aspire to live

No man proposeth me;