The sentence passed, the stalwart Cossack guard Straightway transferred us to a prison yard. There parted we, before its grated door; They dragged him in,--and he was seen no more. Another door, with dull metallic sound Was closed, and I was hurried underground, Through labyrinth of passages and halls, Past dingy arches and protruding walls, Where gloom perpetual the eye obscures, Through damp recesses, nooks and apertures, With foul effluvia and odors filled, By darkness, dampness and decay distilled. For noisome vapors float in gaseous waves, In cavern depths of men-created caves, And generate in humid warmth or cold The loathsome mildew and corrupting mould. At length, through cruel maze of grate and stone, By paths circuitous and ways unknown, We reached the cell,--as hideous a den, As ever held unwilling beasts or men. And soon with manacles securely bound, Myself its only occupant I found. A dungeon, dimly lighted and obscure, With pools of water, stagnant and impure, Whose noxious exhalations permeate The deadened air, which could not circulate: And laden with malignant slime and ooze, Upon the walls discharged in baneful dews: Or else precipitate, with vapory loss, Enrobed the cruel stones with pendent moss. And water, foul as e'er offended lip, Fell from the roof with intermittent drip. Remote from daylight, dismal and unsunned, Decompositions stored a teeming fund Of molecules and organisms strange, In an invisible but constant change. As stagnant waters generate a froth, These, with spontaneous and fungous growth, Had draped the dungeon's limited expanse With toadstool, bulb and foul protuberance. These from the air its milder virtues drank, Supplanting ichors, venemous and dank, Whose essence deleterious, the while, Exudes in savors and miasmas vile. High on the wall, a double-grated slit A slender ray of sunshine would admit On pleasant mornings, when the sky was clear From leaden fogs and hazy atmosphere. A ray of sunlight, yes, a welcome ray, A wholesome beam, but just too far away. Although I tugged at the remorseless chain And strove to reach that sunbeam, 'twas in vain; The lambent gleam which broke into the cell Alone on toad and savage rodent fell. In vain I wrenched the manacles, in vain I sought to rend the cruel gyves in twain, Strove, with contortions painful and extreme, To lay my head within this gladsome beam, Or even touch it with the finger-tip; In vain,--no galling chain relaxed its grip.