In the Prison Pen E-book

                              1864
                      IN THE PRISON PEN

                      by Herman Melville









Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)



                In the Prison Pen


          LISTLESS he eyes the palisades
              And sentries in the glare;
          'Tis barren as a pelican-beach,
              But his world is ended there.

          Nothing to do; and vacant hands
              Bring on the idiot-pain;
          He tries to think-to recollect,
              But the blur is on his brain.

          Around him swarm the plaining ghosts
              Like those on Virgil's shore-
          A wilderness of faces dim,
              And pale ones gashed and hoar.

          A smiting sun. No shed, no tree;
              He totters to his lair-
          A den that sick hands dug in earth
              Ere famine wasted there;

          Or, dropping in his place, he swoons,
              Walled in by throngs that press,
          Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead-
              Dead in his meagreness.


                       THE END