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The glory of evening was spread through the west;
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--On the slope of a mountain I stood;
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While the joy that precedes the calm season of rest
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Rang loud through the meadow and wood.
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"And must we then part from a dwelling so fair?"
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In the pain of my spirit I said,
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And with a deep sadness I turned, to repair
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To the cell where the convict is laid.
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The thick-ribbed walls that o'ershadow the gate
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Resound; and the dungeons unfold:
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I pause; and at length, through the glimmering grate,
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That outcast of pity behold.
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His black matted head on his shoulder is bent,
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And deep is the sigh of his breath,
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And with stedfast dejection his eyes are intent
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On the fetters that link him to death.
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'Tis sorrow enough on that visage to gaze.
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That body dismiss'd from his care;
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Yet my fancy has pierced to his heart, and pourtrays
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More terrible images there.
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His bones are consumed, and his life-blood is dried,
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With wishes the past to undo;
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And his crime, through the pains that o'erwhelm him, descried,
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Still blackens and grows on his view.
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When from the dark synod, or blood-reeking field,
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To his chamber the monarch is led,
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All soothers of sense their soft virtue shall yield,
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And quietness pillow his head.
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But if grief, self-consumed, in oblivion would doze,
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And conscience her tortures appease,
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'Mid tumult and uproar this man must repose;
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In the comfortless vault of disease.
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When his fetters at night have so press'd on his limbs,
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That the weight can no longer be borne,
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If, while a half-slumber his memory bedims,
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The wretch on his pallet should turn,
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While the jail-mastiff howls at the dull clanking chain,
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From the roots of his hair there shall start
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A thousand sharp punctures of cold-sweating pain,
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And terror shall leap at his heart.
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But now he half-raises his deep-sunken eye,
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And the motion unsettles a tear;
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The silence of sorrow it seems to supply,
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And asks of me why I am here.
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"Poor victim! no idle intruder has stood
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"With o'erweening complacence our state to compare,
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"But one, whose first wish is the wish to be good,
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"Is come as a brother thy sorrows to share.
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"At thy name though compassion her nature resign,
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"Though in virtue's proud mouth thy report be a stain,
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"My care, if the arm of the mighty were mine,
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