The Atlantic Monthly, page 129 by Various Authors
<< Return to Title Details & Download130
tex; and the skies Flash with strange lights that bear no name nor date. Sweet winds are breathing that just fan the hair, And fitful gusts that howl against the bars, And harp-like songs, and groans of wild despair, And angry clouds that chase the trembling stars. And on the iron grating the hot cheek We press, and forth into the night we call, And thrust our arms, that, manacled and weak, Clutch but the empty air, and powerless fall.
V.
And yet, O brothers! we, who cannot share This life of lies, this stifling day in night,-- Know we not well, that, if we did but dare Break from our cell, and trust our manhood's might, When once our feet should venture on these wilds, The night would prove a sweet, still solitude,-- Not dark for eyes that, earnest as a child's, Strove in the chaos but for truth and good? And oh, sweet liberty, though wizard gleams And elfin shapes should frighten or allure, To find the pathway of our hopes and dreams,-- By toil to sweeten what we should endure,-- To journey on, though but a little way, Towards the morning and the fir-clad heights,-- To follow the sweet voices, till the day Bloomed in its flush of colors and of lights,-- To look back on the valley and the prison, The windows smouldering still with midnight fires, And know the joy and triumph to have risen Out of that falsehood into new desires! O friends! it may be hard our chains to burst, To scale the ramparts, pass the sentinels; Dark is the night; but we are not the first Who break from the enchanter's evil spells. Though they pursue us with their scoffs and darts, Though they allure us with their siren song, Trust we alone the light within our hearts! Forth to the air! Freedom will dawn ere long!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: 1 Peter, iii. 19.]
PUNCH.
Not inebriating, but exhilarating punch; not punch of which the more a man imbibes the worse he is, but punch of which the deeper the quaffings the better the effects; not a compound of acids and sweets, hot water and fire-water, to ste