Farewell Dark Gaol

Farewell, dark gaol. You hold some better hearts Than in this savage world I thought to find. I do not love you nor the fraudulent arts By which men tutor men to ways unkind. Your law is not my law, and yet my mind Remains your debtor. It has learned to see How dark a thing the earth would be and blind But for the light of human charity. I am your debtor thus and for the pang Which touched and chastened, and the nights of thought Which were my years of learning. See I hang Your image here, a glory all unsought, About my neck. Thus saints in symbol hold Their tools of death and darings manifold.