Hard, so long in a gilded cage to pine;
Hard a hopeless prisoner’s lot—and mine.
[Absently fingering the ornaments on the table, and beginning to put them on.
With rings, and with jewels, and all of my best
By his order myself I am decking—
But oh, if to-day were my burial-feast,
’Twere little that I’d be recking.
[Breaking off.
But if thus I brood I must needs despair;
I know a song that can lighten care.