English Narrative Poems

Narrative poetry, English; Readers -- Poetry
They chained us each to a column stone,
    And we were three--yet, each alone;
    We could not move a single pace,                                  50
    We could not see each other's face,
    But with that pale and livid light
    That made us strangers in our sight:
    And thus together--yet apart,
    Fettered in hand, but joined in heart;                            55
    'Twas still some solace, in the dearth
    Of the pure elements[112] of earth,
    To hearken to each other's speech,
    And each turn comforter to each
    With some new hope or legend old,                                 60
    Or song heroically bold;
    But even these at length grew cold.
    Our voices took a dreary tone,
    An echo of the dungeon stone,
      A grating sound--not full and free                              65
      As they of yore were wont to be;
      It might be fancy--but to me
    They never sounded like our own.


    IV

    I was the eldest of the three,
      And to uphold and cheer the rest                                70
      I ought to do--and did my best--
    And each did well in his degree.
      The youngest, whom my father loved,
    Because our mother's brow was given
    To him--with eyes as blue as heaven,                              75
      For him my soul was sorely moved:
    And truly might it be distressed
    To see such bird in such a nest;
    For he was beautiful as day--
      (When day was beautiful to me                                   80
      As to young eagles being free)--
      A polar day,[113] which will not see
    A sunset till its summer's gone,
      Its sleepless summer of long light,
    The snow-clad offspring of the sun:                               85
      And thus he was as pure and bright,
    And in his natural spirit gay,
    With tears for naught but others' ills,
    And then they flowed like mountain rills,
    Unless he could assuage the woe                                   90
    Which he abhorred to view below.


    V

    The other was as pure of mind,
    But formed to combat with his kind;
    Strong in his frame, and of a mood
    Which 'gainst the world in war had stood,                         95
    And perished in the foremost rank
      With joy:--but not in chains to pine:
    His spirit withered with their clank,
      I saw it silently decline--
      And so perchance in sooth[114] did mine:                       100
    But yet I forced it on to cheer
    Those relics of a home so dear.
    He was a hunter of the hills,
      Had followed there the deer and wolf;
      To him this dungeon was a gulf,                                105
    And fettered feet the worst of ills.


    VI
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English Narrative Poems

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