The Top 40

Reminds me of a page from my bucolic boyhood notebook, before I joined the Metropolitan rat-race of London Town:

Freedom.

Red balloon, stark against a deep blue sky.
Free, freee, freeee!
Free?
Free to burst;
Free to drop into cabbage patch;
Then wither, like a hand accursed.

Freedom is to understand;
To feel, to know
The only free is certainty:
Of how to act - and where to go.

Freedom is to face apocalyptic fear
And conquer such.
Freedom is to know the worst,
But not to care too much.

Freedom is to spend a day in solitary meditation.
Freedom is to fly away on wings of sweet imagination,
To reach the land where dreams are built
Where love is born and hope instilled.
Freedom is to shed the guilt
Of all ambition unfulfilled.

Freedom is to stride God's Earth o'er country hills
And briny strand; walk footpaths passing old windmills,
Through fields where purple-bellied rams
Graze with their ewes and gambolling lambs.

Freedom is to know thyself;
To suffer human limitation;
To cherish happiness and health;
To withstand Satan's arch temptation.

Freedom is to face your death
With dignity and resignation;
Then your last sigh, your final breath
Will end it all without frustration.