THE LIBERATED CONVICT.
Dark prison-dome, farewell.
How slow the hours
Have told their leaden march within thy walls,
Toil claimed the day, and stern remorse the night,
And every season with a frowning face
Approached, and went unreconciled away.
Ah! who with virtue's pure, unblenching soul
Can tell how tardily old Time doth move,
When guilt and punishment have clogged his wings!
The winter of the soul, the frozen brow
Of unpolluted friends, the harrowing pangs
Of the lost prayer, learned at the mother's knee,
The uptorn hope, the violated vow,
The poignant memory of unuttered things,
Do dwell, dark dome, with him, who dwells with thee.
And yet, thou place of woe, I would not speak
Too harshly of thee, since in thy sad cell
Repentance found me, and did steep with tears
My lonely pillow, till the heart grew soft,
And spread itself in brokenness before
The Eye of Mercy. Now my penal doom
Completed, justice with an angel's face
Unbars her dreary gate. But when I view
Once more my home, when mild, forgiving eyes
Shall beam upon me, and the long-lost might
Of freedom nerve my arm, may the strong lines
Of that hard lesson sin hath taught my soul,
Gleam like a flaming beacon.
God of Heaven!
Who not for our infirmities or crimes
Dost turn thy face away, gird thou my soul
And fortify its purpose, so to run
Its future pilgrim-race, as not to lose
The sinner's ransom at the bar of doom.