A Prisoner in a Dungeon Deep by Anne Brontë

    A prisoner in a dungeon deep
    Sat musing silently;
    His head was rested on his hand,
    His elbow on his knee.

    Turned he his thoughts to future times
    Or are they backward cast?
    For freedom is he pining now
    Or mourning for the past?

    No, he has lived so long enthralled
    Alone in dungeon gloom
    That he has lost regret and hope,
    Has ceased to mourn his doom.

    He pines not for the light of day
    Nor sighs for freedom now;
    Such weary thoughts have ceased at length
    To rack his burning brow.

    Lost in a maze of wandering thoughts
    He sits unmoving there;
    That posture and that look proclaim
    The stupor of despair.

    Yet not for ever did that mood
    Of sullen calm prevail;
    There was a something in his eye
    That told another tale.

    It did not speak of reason gone,
    It was not madness quite;
    It was a fitful flickering fire,
    A strange uncertain light.

    And sooth to say, these latter years
    Strange fancies now and then
    Had filled his cell with scenes of life
    And forms of living men.

    A mind that cannot cease to think
    Why needs he cherish there?
    Torpor may bring relief to pain
    And madness to despair.

    Such wildering scenes, such flitting shapes
    As feverish dreams display:
    What if those fancies still increase
    And reason quite decay?

    But hark, what sounds have struck his ear;
    Voices of men they seem;
    And two have entered now his cell;
    Can this too be a dream?

    'Orlando, hear our joyful news:
    Revenge and liberty!
    Your foes are dead, and we are come
    At last to set you free.'

    So spoke the elder of the two,
    And in the captive's eyes
    He looked for gleaming ecstasy
    But only found surprise.

    'My foes are dead! It must be then
    That all mankind are gone.
    For they were all my deadly foes
    And friends I had not one.'