Page:The Castle of Wolfenbach - Parsons - 1854.djvu/312

 of a tyrant his mind was nerved for the worst; yet the letter which the compassion of one of his guards, at the risk of his life, had undertaken to convey to the Countess, afforded him a faint hope that his people might yet affect his escape. In this expectation, he spent hour after hour at his grate, wishing with trembling anxiety to behold his clan advancing over the distant hills. These hills became at length, in a situation so barren of real comforts, a source of ideal pleasure to him. He was always at the grate, and often in the fine evenings of summer, saw the ladies, whose appearance had so strongly excited his admiration and pity, walk on a terrace below the tower. One very fine evening, under the pleasing impressions of hope for himself, and compassion for them, his sufferings for a time lost their acuteness. He longed to awaken their sympathy, and make known to them that they had a fellow prisoner. The parting sun trembled on the tops of the mountains, and a softer shade fell upon the distant landscape. The sweet tranquillity of evening threw an air of tender melancholy over his mind; his sorrows for a while were hushed; and under the enthusiasm of the hour, he composed the following sonnet, which, having committed it to paper, he the next evening dropped upon the terrace.