But I didn't bend, though many days I was weary and hungry, and worn and weak, And for many a starless night I watched, through tears that grooved down my pallid cheek. They are all dry now! They say I'm hard, because I never weep or moan! You can't draw blood when the heart's bled out! you can't find tears or sound in a stone! And I don't know why _I_ should be mild and meek: no one has been very mild to me. You say that Jesus would be--perhaps! but Heaven's a long way off, you see. That will do; I know what you're going to say: "I can have it right here in this narrow cell." The _soul_ is slow to accept Christ's heav'n when his followers chain the body in hell. Not but I'm just as well off here,--better, perhaps, than I was outside. The world was a prison-house to me, where I dwelt, defying and defied. I don't know but I'd think more of what you say, if they'd given us both a common lot; If justice to me had been justice to him, and covered our names with an equal blot; But they took him into the social court, and pitied, and said he'd been "led astray"; In a month the stain on _his_ name had passed, as a cloud that crosses the face of day! He joined the Church, and he's preaching now, just as you are, the love of God, And the duty of sinners to kneel and pray, and humbly to kiss the chastening rod. If they'd dealt with me as they dealt by him, may be I'd credit your Christian love; If they'd dealt with him as they dealt by me, I'd have more faith in a just Above.