A sea of stagnant idleness,
Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless.”
His only gleam of comfort were the occasional visits of an azure-winged bird that came now and then and perched on the window ledge outside his dungeon bars, a fair and gentle companion symbolizing for him all the beauty and tenderness and sweetness in the life he has lost; and on which he comes to concentrate the love and interest of his famished heart.
“A lovely bird with azure wings,
And song that said a thousand things,
And seemed to say them all to me!
I never saw the like before,
I ne’er shall see its likeness more:
It seemed, like me, to want a mate,