I speak of a certain bell
That was in England cast,
A treasure ours to tell,
That rang in America's past...
Inscribed on metal round
Are words in Scripture found:
They liberty did proclaim,
All throughout the land,
And to all who inhabit the same...
These in Leviticus stand.
In July of 1776
The bell did Independence betoken;
For fifty-nine years to follow, it rang,
Till tolling a death, the bell was broken...
For weakness of manufacture
Or of metal, did it fracture...
Now the bell is cracked anew
And is broken even more today:
From freedom astray, and morals too,
A discordant note now clangs away...
From being struck a permissive stroke,
The bell in soul is partly broke;
And through the fissure wide, the crack,
It proclaims decision with moral lack...
Our physical eye won't see it to find,
But visible 'tis to the eye of the mind...
Lo freedom properly used is not
Legalizing a wrong as a right,
Nor judicial thinking, inking a blot
From a quill, fallen in moral flight...
Freedom's set within a bound,
Set by God's own hand...
That's how freedom should sound
And ring across the land...
We need recast the bell
...and
dispel
Freedom gone wrong as well...
We need the metal imbue
With virtue and character true!
To forge it with morals strong
—To
this should freedom belong.
— John Riedell
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Rights Reserved
Site Last Updated on 11/16/08