If to pine in a dungeon were e'er my fate
When light struggled in through the iron grate,
What view would most soothe my unwearied eye,—
The boundless ocean—the earth—or sky?
Oh! not the ocean!—its ceaseless swell
With my restless grief would accord too well;
The voice of its wild waves would break my sleep,
And the captive bend o'er his chain and weep.
'Twere sweet to gaze on the laughing earth,
And view, though distant, its scenes of mirth.
Ah, no! ah, no! they would but recall
Life's flowers to one who had lost them all.
The sky, the sky, unbounded, bright,
With its silvery moon, and its stars of light,
The blush of morning, the evening glow,
Its passing clouds, and its radiant bow,—
There—there would I fix my unwearied eye,
Till fancy could paint a bright world on high,
And earth and its sorrows would fade in night,
With freedom before me—and heaven in sight!
[CHAPTER II.]
A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER.
"Who is that singer?" inquired Mrs. Cleveland in broken Italian of the girl Giuseppina, who had just reentered the room with a large dish of maccaroni which looked like a pile of tobacco-pipes.
"Improvisatore," answered the girl.
"What is that?" inquired Horace.
"An improvisatore," replied Mrs. Cleveland, "is one who makes poetry on the spur of the moment. This class of minstrels is, I believe, peculiar to Italy, the beautiful language of the country giving facility to rapid composition. Do you suppose," she continued, addressing herself to Giuseppina, "that the young man really made that song about prisons himself?"
"Prisons," repeated the Calabrese, with a slight but expressive shrug of the shoulders; "I should say that Raphael might very well sing about prisons."
"You don't mean us to understand," said Horace, "that, young as he seems, he has been acquainted with the inside of them?"
"Chi sa? (Who knows?)" replied the girl, with another expressive shrug, as she placed his dish upon the table.