Poems (Linn)/In Prison

by Edith Willis Linn

IN PRISON.

I AM in prison, lo! on either hand
 The gray walls rise that shut me from the day;
Thick walls whose strength defy my woman power,
 Within whose niches grow the mosses gray:
Time-worn these walls, the home of many a heart
Who longed like mine to know the better part.

I am in prison, though above, the sky
 Gleams clear, and daisied fields are mine. To stray
By winding rivers where the cowslips grow,
 No voice forbids, no bar impedes the way:
And overhead I hear the swallow's wings,
And in the copse the wood-thrush softly sings.

Yet where I go I bear my prison walls;
 I cannot soar and sing while they arise;
And those I love cannot stand heart to heart,
 I can but see the love-light in their eyes;
I can but reach across the walls to find
The dear loved hands that should so closely bind.

O human life, thy bands are hard to bear!
 O world of sense, that towers above the real!
O barren walls, that shut within the soul!
 O time-worn prison, barring our ideal
From our attaining!—could we scale thy side
How life would widen and be glorified.

And yet my soul thou knowest what will be;
 How fair the country is beyond, away.
Be patient, bear thy bondage for a time;
 Thou shalt be free to see and know some day:
To know the true, and truly to be known,
And soul to soul to stand before thine own.