True Love to Liberty Is Never Foe

TRUE love to liberty is never foe,
And he who loves alone is truly free:
Thus thought I when I heard the pulsing flow
Of mighty music rushing gloriously
Along the channels of unchanging law;
Thus thought I when I gazed upon the skies
And there the circling universe I saw
Moving obedient in glad harmonies
About a central inescapable power:
No sun, nor planet, nor wild comet’s course
But owns that sway in every separate hour
Of all its centuries; to that one force
Freely it yields, — as hearts that never rove
But pour their being in a single love.