The Writings of Oscar Wilde/Volume 1/Sonnet to Liberty
For other versions of this work, see Sonnet to Liberty.
Sonnet to Liberty.
Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes See nothing save their own unlovely woe, Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know,—But that the roar of thy Democracies, Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies, Mirror my wildest passions like the sea,–And give my rage a brother——! Liberty! For his sake only do thy dissonant cries Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades Rob nations of their rights inviolate And I remain unmoved—and yet, and yet, These Christs that die upon the barricades, God knows it I am with them, in some things.