English Narrative Poems

Narrative poetry, English; Readers -- Poetry
I saw them--and they were the same,
    They were not changed like me in frame;
    I saw their thousand years of snow
    On high--their wide long lake below,                             335
    And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;
    I heard the torrents leap and gush
    O'er channelled rock and broken bush;
    I saw the white-walled distant town,
    And whiter sails go skimming down;                               340
    And then there was a little isle,[122]
    Which in my very face did smile,
        The only one in view;
    A small green isle it seemed no more,
    Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,                            345
    But in it there were three tall trees,
    And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,
    And by it there were waters flowing,
    And on it there were young flowers growing,
        Of gentle breath and hue.                                    350
    The fish swam by the castle wall,
    And they seemed joyous each and all;
    The eagle rode the rising blast,
    Methought he never flew so fast
    As then to me he seemed to fly,                                  355
    And then new tears came in my eye,
    And I felt troubled--and would fain
    I had not left my recent chain;
    And when I did descend again,
    The darkness of my dim abode                                     360
    Fell on me as a heavy load;
    It was as is a new-dug grave,
    Closing o'er one we sought to save,--
    And yet my glance, too much oppressed,
    Had almost need of such a rest.                                  365


    XIV

    It might be months, or years, or days,
      I kept no count--I took no note,
    I had no hope my eyes to raise,
      And clear them of their dreary mote;
    At last men came to set me free,                                 370
      I asked not why, and recked not where,
    It was at length the same to me,
    Fettered or fetterless to be,
      I learned to love despair.
    And thus when they appeared at last,                             375
    And all my bonds aside were cast,
    These heavy walls to me had grown
    A hermitage--and all my own!
    And half I felt as they were come
    To tear me from a second home:                                   380
    With spiders I had friendship made,
    And watched them in their sullen trade,
    Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
    And why should I feel less than they?
    We were all inmates of one place,                                385
    And I, the monarch of each race,
    Had power to kill--yet, strange to tell!
    In quiet we had learned to dwell--
    My very chains and I grew friends,
    So much a long communion tends                                   390
    To make us what we are:--even I
    Regained my freedom with a sigh.[123]




MAZEPPA


    I
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
English Narrative Poems

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