| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | IV. Desolation | | By Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871) |
| | | THINK ye the desolate must live apart, | |
| By solemn vows to convent-walls confined? | |
| Ah! no; with men may dwell the cloistered heart, | |
| And in a crowd the isolated mind: | |
| Tearless behind the prison-bars of fate, | 5 |
| The world sees not how desolate they stand, | |
| Gazing so fondly through the iron grate | |
| Upon the promised yet forbidden land; | |
| Patience, the shrine to which their bleeding feet | |
| Day after day in voiceless penance turn; | 10 |
| Silence, the holy cell and calm retreat, | |
| In which unseen their meek devotions burn: | |
| Life is to them a vigil, which none share, | |
| Their hopes a sacrifice, their love a prayer. | | | | |
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