Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SOULS IN PRISON, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SOULS IN PRISON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I thought that I looked on the land
Last Line: I shuddered and shrank, and fled.
Subject(s): Poverty


I THOUGHT that I looked on the land of the lost,
A stony desert, arid and bare,
Gray under a heavy air.

Not a bird was there, nor a flower, nor a tree,
Nor rushing river, nor sounding sea;
And I seemed to myself like a ghost.

A land of shadows, a herbless plain,
A faint light aslant on the barren ground,
And never a sight nor a sound:

Only at times, of invisible feet,
Wearily tracking one dull, sad beat,
Too spiritless to complain;

And of faces hid by a blank white mask,
From which there glared out cavernous eyes,
Full of hate and revolt and lies:

As if the green earth on which others live
Had nothing of hope or of fear to give
But a hopeless, perpetual task.

Far in the distance a vast gray pile
Stretched out its spider-like, echoing ways
In long centrifugal rays;

And sometimes dimly I seemed to see
Dumb gangs of poor workers, fruitlessly
Bent in hard tasks useless and vile,

To which, issuing silent, in single rank,
Along narrow pathways stony and blank
The hopeless toilers would come.

Or else each was idly cooped in a cell
Narrow, and gloomy, and hard, as hell,
Which was all that they knew of home.

And around them frowning, grimy and tall,
With no ivy or lichen, a circling wall
Shut God and life utterly out;

And in the midst, with unclosing eye,
A muffled watcher stood silently,
As they paced about and about.

Never alone -- for, wherever they went,
From some central tower an eye was bent
Along all the long, straight-drawn ways.

Never alone -- for an unseen eye,
As the stealthy footstep went noiselessly by,
Swept each lonely cell with its gaze.

Always alone -- for in all the throng
No word or glance as they shuffled along
But the order-word, sharp and loud.

Always alone -- for in all the crowd
No glance of comfort from pitying eyes
Might pierce through the thick disguise.

Nor, if husband were there, or child, or wife,
Could the subtle communion of love and life
Escape that terrible eye.

Yet husbands and wives and children there were,
Young limbs, and age bent in a dumb despair,
Too strong or too weak to die.

Nothing remained, as it seemed, but thought
Of the old hopes vanished and come to nought,
And the hopeless, perpetual care, --

Nought but to sit, as the night would fall,
Tracing black ghosts on the blank white wall
In a silent rage of despair;

Or, before the dull daylight began to break,
To start at the iron-tongued summons and wake
To the curse of another day.

And so, in silence, to brood and plot
To regain the poor freedom and life which were not,
Though it bartered a soul away;

Or, later, to cherish the old offence
With a secret lurking devil of sense,
And a spring of desire self-bent,

Till at last all longing was sunk and spent
In a lifeless, fathomless slough of content.
Not repentance, nor fear, nor grief,

Nor belief at all, nor yet unbelief;
But a soul which skulks from itself like a thief,
And is damned for ever and dead.

* * * *

Thus I thought to myself; and, though straight I saw
It was only the house of retributive Law,
I shuddered and shrank, and fled.





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