LOOK on him――through his dungeon-grate, Feebly and cold, the morning light Comes stealing round him, dim and late, As if it loathed the sight. Reclining on his strawy bed, His hand upholds his drooping head―― His bloodless cheek is seam’d and hard, Unshorn his gray, neglected beard; And o’er his bony fingers flow His long, dishevell’d locks of snow. No grateful fire before him glows,―― And yet the winter’s breath is chill: And o’er his half-clad person goes The frequent ague-thrill! Silent――save ever and anon, A sound, half-murmur and half-groan, Forces apart the painful grip Of the old sufferer’s bearded lip: O, sad and crushing is the fate Of old age chain’d and desolate! Just GOD! why lies that old man there? A murderer shares his prison-bed, Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair, Gleam on him fierce and red; And the rude oath and heartless jeer Fall ever on his loathing ear, And, or in wakefulness or sleep Nerve, flesh, and fibre thrill and creep, Whene’er that ruffian’s tossing limb, Crimson’d with murder, touches him! What has the gray-hair’d prisoner done? Has murder stain’d his hands with gore? Not so: his crime’s a fouler one: _God made the old man poor!_ For this he shares a felon’s cell―― The fittest earthly type of hell! For this――the boon for which he pour’d His young blood on the invader’s sword, And counted light the fearful cost―― His blood-gain’d liberty is lost! And so, for such a place of rest, Old prisoner, pour’d thy blood as rain On Concord’s field, and Bunker’s crest, And Saratoga’s plain? Look forth, thou man of many scars, Through thy dim dungeon’s iron bars! It must be joy, in sooth, to see Yon monument uprear’d to thee―― Piled granite and a prison cell―― The land repays thy service well! Go, ring the bells and fire the guns, And fling the starry banner out; Shout “Freedom!” till your lisping ones Give back their cradle-shout: Let boasted eloquence declaim Of honor, liberty, and fame; Still let the poet’s strain be heard, With “glory” for each second word, And everything with breath agree To praise, “our glorious liberty!” And when the patriot cannon jars That prison’s cold and gloomy wall, And through its grates the stripes and stars Rise on the wind, and fall―― Think ye that prisoner’s aged ear Rejoices in the general cheer! Think ye his dim and failing eye Is kindled at your pageantry? Sorrowing of soul, and chain’d of limb, What is your carnival to him?