110
SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT.
Amid a gloom more terrible than darkness,
A cold, and still, and solitary gloom,
That with a feeble glimmering only makes
The wretchedness around just visible,
The friendless prisoner sits. He does not weep;
Nor from the depths of his dim solitude
Pom- one complaining tone—the warm, blest fount
Of human tears is thy, the sympathies
That bound him to a world of hopes and fears,
And joys and sorrows, yes,the holy ties
Which made Mm man among his fellow-men,
Are broken by despair. He cannot weep,
With head bowed mournfully upon his breast,
And aimless eye,and arms hung lifeless down,
He sits in desperation. On his soul
There dawns no hope; there comes no blessed gleam
Of human kindness, rising like salvation
Amid the pangs of death. How can he raise
Unto the awful power above, those eyes
A cold, and still, and solitary gloom,
That with a feeble glimmering only makes
The wretchedness around just visible,
The friendless prisoner sits. He does not weep;
Nor from the depths of his dim solitude
Pom- one complaining tone—the warm, blest fount
Of human tears is thy, the sympathies
That bound him to a world of hopes and fears,
And joys and sorrows, yes,the holy ties
Which made Mm man among his fellow-men,
Are broken by despair. He cannot weep,
With head bowed mournfully upon his breast,
And aimless eye,and arms hung lifeless down,
He sits in desperation. On his soul
There dawns no hope; there comes no blessed gleam
Of human kindness, rising like salvation
Amid the pangs of death. How can he raise
Unto the awful power above, those eyes
