Falling....the crash! the struggle with horrors, impossible, real!
The bright flight brought to its end by the gloom of a prison-cell.
Free now, back on his rock, at home, yet in prison for ever,
Listless he lay, and gazed on the once-belov’d fair prospect
Languidly, savouring nothing, Disgrace, like a dingy fog-shroud,
Blotting all beauty out. Dully he look’d at the bright Blue,
At the gorse’s gaiety scowl’d; and his eye slunk from the snow-peaks
And the frank face of the sea, but amid the plain like a culprit
Furtively spied, till it found the prison, and there like a chain’d thing
Hung, all helpless awhile—then, fled to a near-by hill-crest,
Seen as a vision, how bright! in those nights of desperate darkness,
Truly in sight now at last, and to-morrow, to-morrow, thank Heaven!
Last of all sights to be! for it fronted fathomless water,
The hiding sea would be all, and life and self-loathing done!....
....A honey-bee boom’d o’er the tussock, and sipp’d at the blossoming shamrock;
He look’d and beheld the blossoms bruis’d by his twisting fingers,
8
