By Edmund Vance Cook
1917
You cannot salt the eagle's tail
Nor limit thought's dominion
You cannot put ideas in jail
You can't deport opinion
If any cause be dross and lies
Then drag it to the light
Out in the sunshine evil dies
But fattens on the night
You cannot make a truth untrue
By dint of legal fiction
You cannot imprison human view
You can't convict conviction
For though by thumbscrew and by rack
By exile and by prison
Truth has been crushed and palled and black
The truth has always risen
You cannot quell a vicious thought
Except that thought be free
Gag it, and you'll find it taught
On every land and sea
Truth asks no favor for her blade
Upon the field with error
Nor are her converts ever made
By threat of force and terror
You cannot salt the eagle's tail
Nor limit thought's dominion
You cannot put ideas in jail
You can't deport opinion
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