Saturday Poetry Corner: On The Freedom Of The Press

 

 

 This Saturday Poetry Corner is a Birthday Salute to one of America's
greatest Founding Fathers, the irrepressible Mr. Benjamin Franklin! 

 

Image courtesy/Adobe Stock

 

 In addition to drafting and signing the Declaration of Independence, 
 Ben wore many hats during his lifetime: writer, editor, statesman, printer, 
 publisher, first postmaster general of the United States, and of course, inventor.  
He was an original poet too, wouldn't you know it!

 While free from Force the Press remains

Virtue and Freedom chear our Plains,

And Learning Largesses bestows,

And keeps unlicens'd open House.

We to the Nation's publick Mart

Our Works of Wit, and Schemes of Art,

And philosophic Goods, this Way,

Like Water carriage, cheap convey. 

This Tree which Knowledge so affords,

Inquisitors with flaming Swords

From Lay-Approach with Zeal defend,

Lest their own Paradise should end. 

The Press from her fecundous Womb

Brought forth the Arts of Greece and Rome;

Her Offspring, skill'd in Logic War,

Truth's Banner wav'd in open Air; 

The Monster Superstition fled,

And hid in Shades her Gorgon Head: 

And lawless Pow'r the long kept Field,

By Reason quell'd was forc'd to yield. 

This Nurse of Arts and Freedom's Fence,

To chain, is Treason against Sense:

And Liberty, thy thousand Tongues

None silence who design no Wrongs;

For those that use the Gag's Restraint,

First rob, before they stop Complaint. 

"On The Freedom Of The Press" 
(1737)
Benjamin Franklin


This poem is an excerpt from a longer essay entitled,
"On Freedom of Speech and the Press" published in
   Franklin's newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette 
on November 17, 1737