Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=419074" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Three Queens</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">IN the far time of Earth's sweet maiden beauty, <br>When Morning hung with rapture on her breast; <br>When every sentient life paid love for duty, <br>And every law was Nature's own behest; <br>When reason ruled as subtle instinct taught her; <br>When joys were pure and sin and shame unseen; <br>Then God sent down His messenger and daughter, <br>His kiss upon her lips, to reign as Queen! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her name was Liberty! Earth lay before her,<br>And throbbed unconscious fealty and truth; <br>Morning and night men hastened to adore her,<br>And from her eyes Peace drew perennial youth. <br>Her hair was golden as the stars of heaven;<br>Her face was radiant with the kiss of Jove; <br>Her form was lovelier than the sun at even;<br>Death paled before her: Life was one with Love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O time traditioned! ere thy dismal sequel, <br>Men owned the world, and every man was free; <br>The lowest life was noble; all were equal <br>In needs and creeds,—their birthright Liberty. <br>Possession had no power of caste, nor learning; <br>He was not great who owned a shining stone; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">No seer was needed for the truth's discerning, <br>Nor king nor code to teach the world its own. <br>Distinction lived, but gave no power o'er others, <br>As flowers have no dominion each o'er each; <br>What men could do they did among their brothers <br>By skill of hand or gift of song or speech.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dear Golden Age! that like a deathless spirit<br>Fills our traditions with a light sublime; <br>Like wheat from Egypt's tombs our souls inherit <br>Sweet dreams of freedom from thy vanished time.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Goddess Liberty! thy sun was cleaving<br>Its golden path across a perfect sky, <br>When lo! a cloud, from night below upheaving, <br>And underneath a shadow and a cry!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In lurid darkness spread the thing of error, <br>Swift ran the shudder and the fear beneath; <br>Till o'er the Queen's face passed the voiceless terror, <br>And Love grew pale to see the joy of Death. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Men stood benumbed to wait unknown disaster;<br>Full soon its sworded Messenger was seen; <br>'Behold!' he cried, 'the weak shall have a master! <br>The Strong shall rule! There reigns another Queen!'' <br>Then rushed the forces of the night-born Power,<br>And seized white Liberty, and cast her down; <br>Man's plundered birthright was the new Queen's dower,<br>The sorrow of the weak ones was her crown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her name was Law! She sent her proclamation<br>Through every land and set her crimson seal <br>On every strangled right and revocation <br>Of aim and instinct of the common weal. <br>She saw the true Queen prisoned by her creatures; <br>Who dared to speak, was slain by her command. <br>Her face was lusterless. With smileless features <br>She took the throne—a weapon in her hand!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her new code read: 'The earth is for the able'<br>(And able meant the selfish, strong, and shrewd): <br>'Equality and freedom are a fable;<br>To take and keep the largest share is good.' <br>Her teachers taught the justice of oppression,<br>That taxed the poor on all but air and sun; <br>Her preachers preached the gospel of possession,<br>That hoards had rights while human souls had none.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then all things changed their object and relation;<br>Commerce instead of Nature—Progress instead of Men; <br>The world became a monstrous corporation,<br>Where ninety serfs ground luxury for ten. <br>The masters blessed, the toilers cursed the system <br>That classified and kept mankind apart; <br>But passing ages rained the dust of custom <br>Where broken Nature showed the weld of art.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But there were some who scorned to make alliance,<br>Who owned the true Queen even in the dust; <br>And these, through generations, flung defiance <br>From goal and gibbet for their sacred trust. <br>Then came the Christ, the Saviour and the Brother, <br>With truth and freedom once again the seed; <br>'Woe to the rich! Do ye to one another<br>As each desires for self '—man's primal creed. <br>But, lo! they took the Saviour and they bound him,<br>And set him in their midst as he were free; <br>They made His tied hands seal their deeds around Him,<br>And His dumb lips condemn fair Liberty!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Then woe!' cried those faint-hearted; 'woe for dreaming,<br>For prayers and hopes and sufferings all in vain!' <br>O Souls despondent at the outward seeming,<br>Here at the cry, behold the light again! <br>Here at the cry, the answer and solution:<br>When strong as Death the cold usurper reigns,<br>When human right seems doomed to dissolution,<br>And Hope itself is wrung with mortal pains; <br>When Christ is harnessed to the landlord's burden; <br>His truth to make men free a thing of scorn; <br>God hears the cry, and sends the mystic guerdon,— <br>Earth thrills and throes—another Queen is born! <br>O weak she comes, a child and not a woman; <br>Needing our nursing and devotion long;<br>But in her eyes the flame divine and human,<br>To strengthen weak ones and restrain the strong.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her name is Learning! Her domain unbounded;<br>Of all the fetters she commands the key; <br>Through her babe-mouth man's wrong shall be confounded,<br>And link by link her sister Queen set free. <br>Her hand shall hold the patriotic passes,<br>And check the wrong that zeal would do for right; <br>Her whispered secrets shall inflame the masses <br>To read their planet-charter by her light. <br>Round her to-day may press the base Queen's minions, <br>Seeking alliance and approval. Nay! <br>The day and night shall mingle their dominions <br>Ere Nature's rule and Mammon's join their sway.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our new Queen comes a nursling, thus to teach us<br>The patience and the tenderness we need: <br>To raise our natures that the light may reach us <br>Of sacrifice and silence for a creed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A nursling yet,—but every school and college<br>Is training minds to tend the heavenly maid; <br>And men are learning, grain by grain, the knowledge <br>That worlds exist for higher ends than trade. <br>Grander than Vulcan's are these mighty forges <br>Where souls are shaped and sharped like fiery swords, <br>To arm the multitude till Might disgorges,<br>And save the Saviour from the selfish hordes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Around us here we count those Pharos stations,<br>Where men are bred to do their Queen's behest: <br>To guard the deep republican foundations<br>Of our majestic freedom of the West! <br>From our high place the broken view grows clearer,<br>The bloodstained upward path the patriots trod; <br>Shall we not reach to bring the toilers nearer<br>The law of Nature, Liberty, and God?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Boyle+O%27Reilly">John Boyle O'Reilly</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=419074" data-title="The Three Queens de John Boyle O'Reilly" data-description="IN the far time of Earth's sweet maiden beauty, 
When Morning hung with rapture on her breast; 
When every sentient life paid love for duty, 
And every law was Nature's own behest; 
When reason ruled as subtle instinct taught her; 
When joys were ..."></div>
</div>
</div>