and find enjoyment in reading them; but you, who are in prison, say, and say truly, that they bring no message of comfort to you; stone walls do make a prison for you, and you see no use in pretending to deny it.
You are quite right. Those who offer you things written by other people by way of consolation, mistake, it seems to me, the whole lie of the situation. Can you imagine the delight of writing those verses; of feeling the music of them flow into one from some Source Unseen, and through one out into the world? The material out of which the man built up his verses consisted of:—stone walls and iron bars. Whatever the material, the joy of the artist in the act of creating harmony under inspiration is the same.
“I am a lonely man,” said he;
“The storm-tossed mariner, alone,
Echoing back the wild wind’s moan,
Breathes not my loneliness,” said he.
“All alone; all unknown;
Like the sun, like the moon.”
“There is,” I said, “a loneliness
That lights the soul like fireflies
Dim twinkling under darkening skies;
’T is near akin to happiness.
All alone it hath shone,
Like the sun, like the moon.”
“I’m not a manly man,” said he;
“A worm upon the path, I fear
The fight for life is too severe.
They’ve crushed me under foot,” said he.
“All alone, nothing won,
Myself I seem to shun.”
