Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/191

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cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who know and can do much less—is still an impure one: to be strictly just it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.—

Spes sibi quisque.
Each one his own hope.

TRUE FREEDOM

Wait not till slaves pronounce the word
To set the captive free,—
Be free yourselves, be not deferred,
And farewell, slavery!

Ye all are slaves, ye have your price,
And gang but cries to gang;
Then rise, the highest of ye rise;—
I hear your fetters clang.

Think not the tyrant sits afar;
In your own breasts ye have
The District of Columbia,
And power to free the slave.

The warmest heart the north doth breed
Is still. too cold and far;
The colored man's release must come
From outcast Africa.

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