THE PRISONER’S DREAM.
On the last sad day of the dying year,
As I lay in my prison racked with pain,
I heard the voices of children clear
Swelling out on the night in a peaceful strain.
They sang a farewell to the dying year,
And the far faint tones of an organ fell
With a soothing cadence upon my ear,
And I slept at last in my loathsome cell.
My body slept with its clanking chain,
But the prison walls fled far away,
And my spirit, glad and free again,
Went forth as upon its bridal day.
I never had thought again to sing,
But a song welled forth from my joyous heart,
As waters gush from a long-sealed spring
When the chains of winter are rent apart.
“I’m coming, I’m coming, my dove, my dear;
In the heaven of thy arms, my own sweet wife,
I’ll usher the birth of the glad new year;
I’m coming, I’m coming, my love, my life!”
* * * * *
Hark! the clang of the changing sentry’s steel;
Awaken, O fool, from thy blissful bed;
On the stony floor of thy dungeon kneel,
And hug thy chain, for the dream is fled.