Hand in Hand/In Captivity

by Alice MacDonald Kipling

In Captivity

IF these chained feet were free to come and go,
And at their own will wander through this Isle,
Seeking cool shaded paths, and, fast or slow,
Choose their own pace, none following the while;
If I might take the memory of this Sun
To dream upon in cold, dark Winter days,
No more constrained to tell out one by one,
The languid hours beneath his fervent rays—
Then this, my woful place of banishment,
My mournful prison-house of misery,
Being no longer mine in punishment,
Unchanged itself would yet be changed to me;
And finding sweet what now most bitter is,
My heart would love what once it loathed, I wis.