My prison has its pleasures. Every day

At breakfast-time, spare meal of milk and bread,

Sparrows come trooping in familiar way

With head aside beseeching to be fed.

A spider too for me has spun her thread

Across the prison rules, and a brave mouse

Watches in sympathy the warders’ tread,

These two my fellow-prisoners in the house.

But about dusk in the rooms opposite

I see lamps lighted, and upon the blind

A shadow passes all the evening through.

It is the gaoler’s daughter fair and kind

And full of pity (so I image it)

Till the stars rise, and night begins anew.