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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


IN VINCULIS; SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: MITIGATIONS by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT

Poet Analysis

First Line: MY PRISON HAS ITS PLEASURES. EVERY DAY
Last Line: TILL THE STARS RISE, AND NIGHT BEGINS ANEW.
Subject(s): PRISONS & PRISONERS; CONVICTS;

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.



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