Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/106

100 The Sentry leant on his rifle, and stood By the mast, with a deep-drawn breath; A stern-browed man, but there heaved a sigh For the sight that greeted his downward eye In the prison-square beneath.

In yellow garb, in soldier lines, One hundred men in chains; While the watchful warders, sword in hand, With eyes suspicious keenly scanned The links of the living lanes.

There, wary eyes met stony eyes, And stony face met stone. There was never a gleam of trust or truce; In the covert thought of an iron loose, Grim warder and ward were one.

Why was it so, that there they stood,— Stern driver and branded slave?