Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/149

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prison-dome, farewell. How slow the hours Have told their leaden march within thy walls, Toil claimed the day, and stern remorse the night, And every season with a frowning face Approached, and went unreconciled away. Ah! who with virtue's pure, unblenching soul Can tell how tardily old Time doth move, When guilt and punishment have clogged his wings! The winter of the soul, the frozen brow Of unpolluted friends, the harrowing pangs Of the lost prayer, learned at the mother's knee, The uptorn hope, the violated vow, The poignant memory of unuttered things, Do dwell, dark dome, with him, who dwells with thee. And yet, thou place of woe, I would not speak Too harshly of thee, since in thy sad cell Repentance found me, and did steep with tears My lonely pillow, till the heart grew soft, And spread itself in brokenness before The Eye of Mercy. Now my penal doom Completed, justice with an angel's face Unbars her dreary gate. But when I view Once more my home, when mild, forgiving eyes Shall beam upon me, and the long-lost might Of freedom nerve my arm, may the strong lines Of that hard lesson sin hath taught my soul, Gleam like a flaming beacon.