The Prisoner

The Prisoner

I count the dismal time by months and years

Since last I felt the green sward under foot,

And the great breath of all things summer-

Met mine upon my lips. Now earth appears

As strange to me as dreams of distant spheres

Or thoughts of Heaven we weep at. Natures lute

Sounds on, behind this door so closely shut,

A strange wild music to the prisoners ears,

Dilated by the distance, till the brain

Grows dim with fancies which it feels too

While ever, with a visionary pain,

Past the precluded senses, sweep and Rhine

Streams, forests, glades, and many a golden train

Of sunlit hills transfigured to Divine.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning