Condemned in pestilential cells to pine,
Delving for gold amidst the gloomy mine.
The sufferer, sick of life-protracting breath,
Inhaled with joy the fire-damp blast of death,—
Condemned to fell the mountain palm on high,
That cast its shadow to the evening sky,
Ere the tree trembled to his feeble stroke,
The woodman languished, and his heart-strings broke;
Condemned in torrid noon, with palsied hand,
To urge the slow plough o’er the obdurate land,