Browning's Shorter Poems: Why I Am A Liberal

Why I Am A Liberal

"Why?" Because all I haply can and do,
  All that I am now, all I hope to be,--
  Whence comes it save from fortune setting free
Body and soul the purpose to pursue,
God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,
  Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,
  These shall I bid men--each in his degree
Also God-guided--bear, and gayly too?
  But little do or can the best of us:
That little is achieved thro' Liberty.                                       10
  Who then dares hold, emancipated thus,
His fellow shall continue bound? not I,
  Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss
A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why."

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