Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HULKS by ETHELYN MILLER HARTWICH

First Line: I SAW FORBIDDING WALLS
Last Line: CAST HULKS ITSELF HAD WRECKED.
Subject(s): PRISONS & PRISONERS; CONVICTS;
I saw forbidding walls
Enclosing fortresses
Of gray and lifeless stone;
The windows' strong black bars
Where armed guards stood watch.
Pale creatures moved about
In uniforms of shame;
Did tasks that used their hands,
Their souls unoccupied;
Ate, cowering, silent meals
Before a leveled gun,
They lay in smothering cells
That knew no privacy.
All day sight-seers peered
To see the dumping ground
In which Society
Cast hulks itself had wrecked.



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