“
If chance assign’d
Were to my mind
By very kind
Of destiny,
Yet would I crave
Nought else to have
But life and liberty.
Then were I sure
I might endure
The displeasure
Of cruelty:
Where now I plain,
Alas, in vain,
Lacking my life for liberty.
For without the one
The other is gone,
Ad there can none
It remedy:
If the one be past
The other doth waste,
And all for lack of liberty.
And so I drive,
As yet alive,
Although I strive
With misery:
Drawing my breath,
Looking for death
And loss of life for liberty.
But thou that still
Mayst at thy will
Turn all this ill
Adversity:
For the repair
Of my welfare
Grant me but life and liberty.
And if not so,
Then let all go
To wretched woe,
And let me die:
For the one or the other,
There is none other:
My death, or life with liberty.
- Poem XLI from "Songs and Lyrics
”
”