A kind of change came in my fate,
My keepers grew compassionate;

I know not what had made them so,
They were inured to sights of woe,
But so it was:- my broken chain.
With links unfastened did remain,
And it was liberty to stride
Along my cell from side to side,

And up and down, and then athwart,
And tread it over every part ;
And round the pillars one by one,
Returning where my walk begun,
Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers' graves without a sod.
For if I thought with heedless tread
My step profaned their lowly bed,
My breath came gaspingly and thick,
And my crushed heart fell blind and sick.

I made a footing in the wall;

It was not therefrom to escape, For I had buried one and all

Who loved me in a human shape;

And the whole earth would henceforth be
A wider prison unto me;

No child, no sire, no kin had I,

No partner in my misery;

I thought of this, and I was glad,

For thought of them had made me mad;
But I was curious to ascend

To my barred windows, and to bend
Once more upon the mountains high
The quiet of a loving eye.

I saw them—and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high-their wide, long lake below,
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channeled rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-walled distant town,
And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle,

Which in my very face did smile

The only one in view;

1;

A small, green isle, it seemed no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor;
But in it there were three tall trees,
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,
And by it there were waters flowing,
And on it there were young flowers growing
Of gentle breath and hue.

It might be months, or years, or days,
I kept no count-I took no note,
I had no hope my eyes to raise,

And clear them of their dreary mote;
At last came men to set me free,

I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where,

It was at length the same to me,
Fettered or fetterless to be,

I learn'd to love despair,

And thus when they appear'd at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage and all my own!

And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home:
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watched them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,

And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,

Had power to kill, yet strange to tell,
In quiet we had learned to dwell;
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends

To make us what we are: even I
Regained my freedom with a sigh.

As I walked across in front of his cage in the lion house his eyes followed me with a dull indifference which was almost as piteous as pain. That royal figure, terrible in his sinewy strength, splendid in his superb beauty, framed 5 for swift running, for graceful leaping, for the wild joys of the life God had given him, was a miserable captive. The wrath and anguish of his first imprisonment had died away. No longer was it a keen and bitter agony to remember the wide, solitary plains, the refreshing 10 streams, the warm sunshine, and the cool shade. He was used to his keeper and to his narrow cage-used to the idle, impertinent crowd that came daily to watch him.

Infinite weariness was in that kingly face, but the protest He accepted his fate.

was gone.

On both sides of his prison were later arrivals, pacing back and forth with the quick, nervous step of the newly caged, in the frantic hope that somewhere the bars might 5 open and they might step forth into freedom once more. But he knew that he was a prisoner with a life sentence. Hopeless, crushed, yet never more truly regal than in his helplessness and defeat, he looked out over the moving throng with the unconcern that was a part of his despair. 10 Anticipation, eagerness, joy, these had faded forever from the magnificent eyes. Life had ceased to hold such emotions. Even the stir of excitement which, in the other cages, marked the drawing near of feeding time, failed to move him to anything more than a listless inter- 15 est. He took the huge joint thrust within his reach and dragged it away to the farthest corner; at least he would eat in private so far as he could. But the eager crowd pressed and jostled one another in their rude and vulgar curiosity.

20

Poor captive! In the busy street where your picture is displayed it calls forth admiring comment from thousands. But sometimes a passer-by turns away with sympathy and pity in his face, for never did Tragedy look forth more surely from human countenance than from 25 those saddened and reproachful eyes.

Selected.