A Prisoner's story, which might steal some tears
From the sad eyes of him that reads or hears;
Give me a peaceful death, and let me meet
My freedom seal'd up in my winding sheet.
Death is the pledge of rest, and with one bail
90Two prisons quits, the Body and the Jail.
An Essay.] This piece stands to some work of Donne's much as others of King's do to the lyrics of the greater poet. The couplets are more enjambed than in The Woes of Esay, and the metaphysicality is of the satiric kind. It should not be needful, but may be well, to say that King had no actual experience of prisons. On the other side of the matter the piece might, but by no means need, belong to the series connected with his wife's death.
The Labyrinth.
Life is a crooked labyrinth, and we