On The Rights Of Mankind

“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records.  They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power”.   Alexander Hamilton.

Let us not rifle through musty records,

Nor rummage through parchments, dusty and old

For the rights of mankind: they’re not fixed words,

Scratched by a scribe, nor carved in stone, but gold.

For they are drawn with light, as a sunbeam, 

Within the whole and glorious volume 

Of human nature.  Dancing their bright gleam

And shedding warmth and light within the gloom

Of long confusion.  Why make the attempt

To capture and pin down elusiveness

Divine?  They will pertain, no one’s exempt.

Their truth will stand, there’s no exclusiveness,

For mankind’s rights, arise from light, like flowers,

And cannot be erased by mortal powers.