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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LINES ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM [ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY 1796] by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE DEATH OF LEONIDAS by GEORGE CROLY DANIEL WEBSTER by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES LOVE IN A COTTAGE by NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS TO A FRIEND WHOSE WORK HAS COME TO NOTHING by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |