 | My Sonnets |  |
21
WRITTEN ON READING SILVIO PELLICO'S IMPRISONMENTS.
1
Ten years have gone, ten long, long, weary, years,With all their slow, slow, miserable, hours,
Since, Silvio, the dungeons dark, now hers
Who rules fallen Venice, clasped thee—since thy ears
Heard first, while, round thee, horrid, shapeless, fears
Came thronging, such as the bold spirit cowers
To gaze on, dying off, 'mid those dark towers,
The clash of closing doors, which whoso hears
May hope abandon, and, with fixed, dull, eye,
Welcome despair, or woo salt, blinding, tears,
Thinking of the green earth, the sweet blue sky,
The sunshine that, dulled, through the black bars peers,
And leafy woods of June that shadow o'er
A thousand free wild flowers, that he may see no more.
November 16th, 1842.
2.
Imperial jailer, this devotes thy nameThroughout the future, through eternity,
To be a bye-word in men's mouths,—to be
So base, that, when they seek to damn to fame,
To endless, black, unutterable, shame,
A brutal tyrant's bloody memory,
They shall rank him next only but to thee
In their deep, holy, hatred—may its flame
Consume, in man, all pity. Not in vain
May molten words its withering fire proclaim.
Curses cling to thee. Thee, for the disdain
Of ages, as her own may memory claim.
And thou, meek captive, may thy glory last
Till infamy, his name, shall weep to blast.
November 17th, 1842.
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