1
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! | |
| O fearful thought—a convict Soul! | |
RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison, | |
| Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above, | |
| Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong, the like whereof was never heard, | 5 |
| Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas’d their pacing, | |
| Making the hearer’s pulses stop for extasy and awe. | |
2
O sight of pity, gloom, and dole! | |
| O pardon me, a hapless Soul! | |
The sun was low in the west one winter day, | 10 |
| When down a narrow aisle, amid the thieves and outlaws of the land, | |
| (There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counterfeiters, | |
| Gather’d to Sunday church in prison walls—the keepers round, | |
| Plenteous, well-arm’d, watching, with vigilant eyes,) | |
| All that dark, cankerous blotch, a nation’s criminal mass, | 15 |
| Calmly a Lady walk’d, holding a little innocent child by either hand, | |
| Whom, seating on their stools beside her on the platform, | |
| She, first preluding with the instrument, a low and musical prelude, | |
| In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn. | |
3
THE HYMN.
A Soul, confined by bars and bands, | 20 |
| Cries, Help! O help! and wrings her hands; | |
| Blinded her eyes—bleeding her breast, | |
| Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest. | |
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! | |
| O fearful thought—a convict Soul! | 25 |
Ceaseless, she paces to and fro; | |
| O heart-sick days! O nights of wo! | |
| Nor hand of friend, nor loving face; | |
| Nor favor comes, nor word of grace. | |
O sight of pity, gloom, and dole! | 30 |
| O pardon me, a hapless Soul! | |
It was not I that sinn’d the sin, | |
| The ruthless Body dragg’d me in; | |
| Though long I strove courageously, | |
| The Body was too much for me. | 35 |
O Life! no life, but bitter dole! | |
| O burning, beaten, baffled Soul! | |
(Dear prison’d Soul, bear up a space, | |
| For soon or late the certain grace; | |
| To set thee free, and bear thee home, | 40 |
| The Heavenly Pardoner, Death shall come. | |
Convict no more—nor shame, nor dole! | |
| Depart! a God-enfranchis’d Soul!) | |
4
The singer ceas’d; | |
| One glance swept from her clear, calm eyes, o’er all those upturn’d faces; | 45 |
| Strange sea of prison faces—a thousand varied, crafty, brutal, seam’d and beauteous faces; | |
| Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them, | |
| While her gown touch’d them, rustling in the silence, | |
| She vanish’d with her children in the dusk. | |
5
While upon all, convicts and armed keepers, ere they stirr’d, | 50 |
| (Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,) | |
| A hush and pause fell down, a wondrous minute, | |
| With deep, half-stifled sobs, and sound of bad men bow’d, and moved to weeping, | |
| And youth’s convulsive breathings, memories of home, | |
| The mother’s voice in lullaby, the sister’s care, the happy childhood, | 55 |
| The long-pent spirit rous’d to reminiscence; | |
| —A wondrous minute then—But after, in the solitary night, to many, many there, | |
| Years after—even in the hour of death—the sad refrain—the tune, the voice, the words, | |
| Resumed—the large, calm Lady walks the narrow aisle, | |
| The wailing melody again—the singer in the prison sings: | 60 |
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! | |
| O fearful thought—a convict Soul! | |
