Man was not made for forms, but forms for man,
And there are times when law itself must bend
To that clear spirit always in the van,
Outspeeding human justice. In the end
Potentates, not humanity, must fall.
Water will find its level, fire will burn,
The winds must blow around the earthly ball,
The earthly ball by day and night must turn;
Freedom is typed in every element,
Man must be free, if not through law, why then
Above the law, until its force be spent
And justice brings a better. But, O, when,
Father of Light, when shall the reckoning come
To lift the weak, and strike the oppressor dumb.
--Christopher Pearse Cranch.
What I am, what I am not, in the eye
Of the world, is what I never cared for much.
--Robert Browning.