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What the savage at the stump, his eye-sockets empty,
his mouth spirting whoops and defiance,
What stills the traveller come to the vault at Mount
Vernon,
What sobers the Brooklyn boy as he looks down the
shores of the Wallabout and remembers the
Prison Ships,
What burnt the gums of the red-coat at Saratoga
when he surrendered his brigades,
These become mine and me every one—and they are
but little,
I become as much more as I like.

245.I become any presence or truth of humanity here,
See myself in prison shaped like another man,
And feel the dull unintermitted pain.

246.For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their
carbines and keep watch,
It is I let out in the morning and barred at night.

247.Not a mutineer walks hand-cuffed to the jail, but I
am hand-cuffed to him and walk by his side,
I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one,
with sweat on my twitching lips.

248.Not a youngster is taken for larceny, but I go up too,
and am tried and sentenced.

249.Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp, but I also
lie at the last gasp,
My face is ash-colored—my sinews gnarl—away
from me people retreat.