Freedom by Ambrose Bierce

By Paul Matthew CarrLast Updated: October 7, 2024Views: 1750

I’m going to post this with very little comment from me other than to welcome you to this month’s theme: FREEDOM.

The reason for posting this should be fairly obvious. And by way of commentary, I shall simply give you a couple of definitions written by Ambrose Bierce himself:

Freedom, n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half dozen of restraint’s infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly.

Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either.

I hope you enjoy this poem.

Freedom
by Ambrose Bierce

Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,
Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;
On every wind, indeed, that blows
I hear her yell.

She screams whenever monarchs meet,
And parliaments as well,
To bind the chains about her feet
And toll her knell.

And when the sovereign people cast
The votes they cannot spell,
Upon the pestilential blast
Her clamors swell.

For all to whom the power’s given
To sway or to compel,
Among themselves apportion Heaven
And give her Hell.

About the Author

Ambrose Bierce was an American newspaperman, wit, satirist, and author of sardonic short stories based on themes of death and horror. His death is an unsolved mystery. Bierce’s principal books are In the Midst of Life (1892), Can Such Things Be? (1893), The Devil’s Dictionary (originally published in 1906 as The Cynic’s Word Book), and his Collected Works was published in 12 volumes, 1909–12; it includes his two books of poetry.

This poem is in the public domain.
Originally posted July 1, 2021

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