Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy By the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley |
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ON FINDING A SWIFT IN THE CASTLE PRISON AT THUN |
 | Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy |  |
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ON FINDING A SWIFT IN THE CASTLE PRISON AT THUN
You of the soft grey throat and ebon wing,
Was it the soul of sympathy and grace
For these poor mortals in their piteous case,
That thus aside your freedom you dared fling,
Your joy of flight beyond imagining—
Gave up the fierce excitement of your race,
And lonely in this lamentable place,
Here to dumb walls a speechless prisoner cling?
Was it the soul of sympathy and grace
For these poor mortals in their piteous case,
That thus aside your freedom you dared fling,
Your joy of flight beyond imagining—
Gave up the fierce excitement of your race,
And lonely in this lamentable place,
Here to dumb walls a speechless prisoner cling?
Or have you come into this hall of doom
With message of a wider Heaven above,
From Him who only breaks the prison bars,
On solid earth or in the trembling stars,
For all whose feet are set in narrow room,
Who gives us freedom when He grants us Love?
With message of a wider Heaven above,
From Him who only breaks the prison bars,
On solid earth or in the trembling stars,
For all whose feet are set in narrow room,
Who gives us freedom when He grants us Love?
| Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy | |