SADLY the captive o'er the flowers is bending, While her soft eye with sudden sorrow fills; They are not those that grew beneath her tending In the green valley of her native hills. There is the violet -- not from the meadow Where wandered carelessly her childish feet; There is the rose -- it grew not in the shadow Of her old home -- it cannot be so sweet. And yet she loves them -- for those flowers are bringing Dreams of the home that she will see no more; The languid perfumes are around her, flinging What almost for the moment they restore. She hears her mother's wheel that slowly turning Murmur'd unceasingly the summer day; And the same murmur when the pine-boughs burning Told that the summer-hours had passed away. She hears her young companions sadly singing A song they loved -- an old complaining tune; Then comes a gayer sound -- the laugh is ringing Of the young children -- hurrying in at noon. By the dim myrtles, wandering with her sister, They tell old stories, broken by the mirth Of her young brother: alas! have they missed her She who was borne a captive from their hearth? She starts -- too present grows the actual sorrow, By her own heart she knows what they have borne; Young as she is, she shudders at to-morrow, It can but find her prisoner and forlorn. What are the glittering trifles that surround her -- What the rich shawl -- and what the golden chain -- Would she could break the fetters that have bound her, And see her household and her hills again! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 36. LIFE-IN-LOVE by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI SONNET: 86 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ELLEN BRINE OV ALLENBURN by WILLIAM BARNES EXOTIC PERFUME by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE MY MOTHER by GEORGE WASHINGTON BETHUNE HINC LACHRIMAE; OR THE AUTHOR TO AURORA: 13 by WILLIAM BOSWORTH |