Lyric Poem · Peace
Of Old Sat Freedom on the Heights
1Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
2The thunders breaking at her feet:
3Above her shook the starry lights:
4She heard the torrents meet.
5There in her place she did rejoice,
6Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind,
7But fragments of her mighty voice
8Came rolling on the wind.
9Then stept she down thro' town and field
10To mingle with the human race,
11And part by part to men reveal'd
12The fulness of her face —
13Grave mother of majestic works,
14From her isle-altar gazing down,
15Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,
16And, King-like, wears the crown:
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“Of Old Sat Freedom on the Heights” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — quilloak.com/poems/of-old-sat-freedom-on-the-heights
Quick facts
- Poem
- Of Old Sat Freedom on the Heights
- Poet
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Length
- 24 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Peace, Death & Loss, Nature
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 24 lines · 4 stanzas of 4–12 lines
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson1809–1892
- Source record
- PoetryDBOf Old Sat Freedom on the Heights by alfred-lord-tennyson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 ebfdd0584cd12dfd…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.