I am the prisoner of my love of you.
I pace my soul, as prisoned culprits do,
You Stand like any gaoler at the gate,
And I am fevered, chill, and desolate,
Weary with walking the damp dungeon-floor.
Cursing your name, and loving you the more
For crying curses. if I could but keep
Your thought away but just enough to sleep
One calm night through, I might enjoy the stars;
But now I see beyond my prison-bars,
Night and day, nothing; only iron rust,
And windows blackened over with wet dust.
While I was slumbering, half awake, I heard
A voice that spoke a little poisonous word,
Subtly against my ear; it said that all
These barred inventions are fantastical,
These four unfriendly walls I touch and see,
A wilful dream and no reality,
And that I need but waken to be free.
A cunning but a foolish voice! I know
Your walls are solid, stablished long ago,
Not for one only: here's name after name,
Carved on the Stones: I'll add my name to them.
Outside, I hear, sometimes, far off yet loud,
A sound as of the voices of a crowd,
And hands that beat against a gate; I hear
Cries of revolt, and only these I fear.
'Tis you they strike at: what have I to do
With freedom, if 'tis liberty from you?
I am content with this unhappiness;
Why should the world, that has no soul to guess
The joy and miracle of my distress,
Strive to break in, and ravish me from pain,
That, being loft, I should seek out again?
O, I was friends once with the world, I went
The world's way, and was sunnily content
Only to be a pilgrim, and to roam
The grey dust: and the flying-footed foam.
My heart knew not of bondage, I was full
Of young desire, the earth was beautiful,
And women's faces were a light that showed
The way at every turning of the road,
And I had never looked as deep as tears
Into a woman's heart.
Unthinkable years,
I loitered through with scarce returning feet,
And dreamed that only freedom could be sweet!
How, in my prison, I Stand pitying
That gipsy leisure for an idle thing,
A memory not worth remembering!
I am alone now, miserable, bound
With chains that crawl behind me on the ground,
Sleepless with hate and with the ache of thought,
My pride of triumph broken down and brought
Into a sullen quelled captivity:
Alas, I only fear to be set free!
