 | Jones Very : The Complete Poems |  |
The Prisoner
All men around me running to and froAre finding life in what to me is death;
I have no limbs that where I please will go,
Nor voice that when I wish will find a breath;
Here, where I stand, my feet take fixed root;
This way or that I cannot even move;
A prisoner, ever bound both hand and foot,
While I a slave to mine own choice would prove;
'Tis hard to wait, but grant me thus set free;
And they; how narrow their short bounded lot!
My sun the centre of their worlds will be,
In systems moving where they shine forgot;
Their rays too feebly twinkling through the night,
Where I shall shine with all day's lustre bright.
Poem No. 32; fall 1838–summer 1839
| Jones Very : The Complete Poems | |