Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/201

Rh I dream I am a child once more. Not so;

I am just what I am: a man in prison—

(Damn them! I'm innocent of what they swore

And proved—with cant, and well-paid perjury;

Tho' other crimes, they know not of, I did)—

But suddenly my soul is pure as yours;

My thought as clean; my spirit is as free

As any man's, or any purest woman's.

I think as justly, as for instance, sir,

You think; as circumspectly, wisely, freely,

As does my jolly keeper, or the smith

Who enters once a day to try the bars

That shut my body out from freedom! Not

My soul. Why, this my soul has thoughts that strike

Into the very hights and depths of Heaven.

You'll think it passing strange, good friend, no doubt.

'T is strange; but here s a further mystery:

Think you that in some other living state

After what we call death,—or in this life,—

The thinking part of us we name the soul

Can ever get away from its old self;

Can wash the earth all off from it, that so

It really will be, what I sometimes seem—

As sinless as a little child at birth,

With all a woman's love for all things pure,

And all a grown man's strength to do the right?

THE CONDEMNED