Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CAPTIVE, by ANNA BLAKE MEZQUIDA


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CAPTIVE, by                    
First Line: Like some lone eagle brooding in his cage
Last Line: But conqueror still, it soars among the stars.


Like some lone eagle brooding in his cage,
Who mourns for mountain crags and wind-swept skies,
Or some gay cockatoo who screams in rage
For tropic glades of his lost paradise;
Thus I, within the circle drawn by Fate,
Must mark my weary days and yearn and wait.

No Cæsar gazed on many-templed Rome
With larger hopes than I looked out on life:
My vision leaped the confines of my home—
That sordid scene of misery and strife—
And winged my feet that they might find the way
From murk and darkness out into the day.

I watched the world strain at her swaddling bands
And laughed to think how I should sway men's thought,
And how the sore-oppressed of many lands
Should gain through me the freedom that they sought.
Colossal deeds and vast heroic schemes
I planned within the magic realm of dreams.

Today, from out my window dimmed with smoke,
The dull, drab vista of my youth appears:
Here I have bent the back to duty's yoke
And held me to the treadmill all these years.
A captive? Nay, my spirit heeds no bars,
But conqueror still, it soars among the stars.





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