In The Prison Pen

1864 Listless he eyes the palisades And sentries in the glare; 'Tis barren as a pelican-beach But his world is ended there. Nothing to do; and vacant hands Bring on the idiot-pain; He tries to think--to recollect, But the blur is on his brain. Around him swarm the plaining ghosts Like those on Virgil's shore-- A wilderness of faces dim, And pale ones gashed and hoar. A smiting sun. No shed, no tree; He totters to his lair-- A den that sick hands dug in earth Ere famine wasted there, Or, dropping in his place, he swoons, Walled in by throngs that press, Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead-- Dead in his meagreness.