Robinson Jeffers - Shine, Republic lyrics

The quality of these trees, green height; of the sky, shining, of water, a clear flow; of the rock, hardness And reticence: each is noble in its quality. The love of freedom has been the quality of Western man. There is a stubborn torch that flames from Marathon to Concord, its dangerous beauty binding three ages Into one time; the waves of barbarism and civilization have eclipsed but have never quenched it. For the Greeks the love of beauty, for Rome of ruling; for the present age the pa**ionate love of discovery; But in one noble pa**ion we are one; and Washington, Luther, Tacitus, Aeschylus, one kind of man. And you, America, that pa**ion made you. You were not born to prosperity, you were born to love freedom. You did not say 'en ma**e,' you said 'independence.' But we cannot have all the luxuries and freedom also. Freedom is poor and laborious; that torch is not safe but hungry, and often requires blood for its fuel. You will tame it against it burn too clearly, you will hood it like a kept hawk, you will perch it on the wrist of Caesar. But keep the tradition, conserve the forms, the observances, keep the spot sore. Be great, carve deep your heel-marks. The states of the next age will no doubt remember you, and edge their love of freedom with contempt of luxury.