Ah Missy, Freedom's sweet

I am reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's journal Emerson in His Journals. The sweetness of freedom is captured in this short journal entry and goes to show that a life without freedom is no life at all.

Lidian's grandmother had a slave Phillis whom she freed. Phillis went to the little colony on the outside of Plymouth which these called New Guinea. Soon after, she visited her old mistress. "Well, Phillis, what did  you have for dinner on Thanksgiving Day?" "Fried 'taturs, Missy;" replied Phillis. "And what had you to fry the potatoes in?" said Mrs Cotton. "Fried in Water, Missy;" answered the girl. "Well Phillis," said Mrs Cotton, "how can you bear to live up there, so poor, where here you used to have every thing comfortable, & such good dinner at Thanksgiving?" --"Ah Missy, Freedom's sweet." returned Phillis 

The angst from the loss of freedom is exquisitely portrayed by poets Maya Angelou in I know why the caged bird sings and Tagore in this poem from The Gardener

The tame bird was in a cage, the free bird was in the forest.
They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate.
The free bird cries, "O my love, let us fly to wood."
The cage bird whispers, "Come hither, let us both live in the cage."
Says the free bird, "Among bars, where is there room to spread one's wings?"
"Alas," cries the cage bird, "I should not know where to sit perched in the sky."

 The free bird cries, "My darling, sing the songs of the woodlands."
 The cage bird says, "Sit by my side, I'll teach you the speech of the learned."
 The forest bird cries, "No, ah no! songs can never be taught."
 The cage bird says, "Alas for me, I know not the songs of the woodlands."

 Their love is intense with longing, but they never can fly wing to wing.
 Through the bars of the cage they look, and vain is their wish to know each other.
 They flutter their wings in yearning, and sing, "Come closer, my love!"
 The free bird cries, "It cannot be, I fear the closed doors of the cage."
 The cage bird whispers, "Alas, my wings are powerless and dead."