It might be months, or years, or days, I kept no count,--I took no note, I had no hope my eyes to raise, And clear them of their dreary mote; At last men came to set me free, I asked not why and recked not where, It was at length the same to me, Fettered or fetterless to be, I learned to love despair. And thus when they appeared at last, And all my bonds aside were cast, These heavy walls to me had grown A hermitage, and all my own! And half I felt as they were come To tear me from a second home; With spiders I had friendship made, And watched them in their sullen trade, Had seen the mice by moonlight play, And why should I feel less than they? We were all inmates of one place, And I, the monarch of each race, Had power to kill,--yet, strange to tell; In quiet we had learned to dwell,-- My very chains and I grew friends, So much a long communion tends To make us what we are:--even I Regained my freedom with a sigh.
"The dead hand clasped a letter." --SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.
Here in this leafy place, Quiet he lies, Cold, with his sightless face Turned to the skies; 'T is but another dead;-- All you can say is said.
Carry his body hence,-- Kings must have slaves; Kings climb to eminence Over men's graves. So this man's eye is dim;-- Throw the earth over him.
What was the white you touched, There at his side? Paper his hand had clutched Tight ere he died; Message or wish, may be:-- Smooth out the folds and see.
Hardly the worst of us Here could have smiled!-- Only the tremulous Words of a child:-- Prattle, that had for stops Just a few ruddy drops.
Look. She is sad to miss, Morning and night, His--her dead father's--kiss, Tries to be bright, Good to mamma, and sweet. That is all. "_Marguerite._"
Ah, if beside the dead Slumbered the pain! Ah, if the hearts that bled Slept with the slain! If the grief died!--But no:-- Death will not have it so.
Early one winter morn, in such a village as this, Snow-whitened everywhere except the middle road Ice-roughed by track of sledge, there worked by his abode Ivàn Ivànovitch, the carpenter, employed On a huge shipmast trunk; his axe now trimmed and toyed With branch and twig, and now some chop athwart the bole
[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING. _After a life-photograph by Elliott & Fry, London._]