As if thro’ that black and massy pile, 885
And thro’ the crowd around him there,
And thro’ the dense and murky air,
And the thronged streets, he did espy
What poets know and prophesy;
And said, with voice that made them shiver 890
And clung like music in my brain,
And which the mute walls spoke again
Prolonging it with deepened strain: 
’Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever,
Or the priests of the bloody faith; 895
They stand on the brink of that mighty river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death: 
It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see, 900
Like wrecks in the surge of eternity.’

I dwelt beside the prison gate;
And the strange crowd that out and in
Passed, some, no doubt, with mine own fate,
Might have fretted me with its ceaseless din, 905
But the fever of care was louder within. 
Soon, but too late, in penitence
Or fear, his foes released him thence: 
I saw his thin and languid form,
As leaning on the jailor’s arm, 910
Whose hardened eyes grew moist the while,
To meet his mute and faded smile,
And hear his words of kind farewell,
He tottered forth from his damp cell. 
Many had never wept before, 915
From whom fast tears then gushed and fell: 
Many will relent no more,
Who sobbed like infants then; aye, all
Who thronged the prison’s stony hall,
The rulers or the slaves of law, 920
Felt with a new surprise and awe
That they were human, till strong shame
Made them again become the same. 
The prison blood-hounds, huge and grim,
From human looks the infection caught, 925
And fondly crouched and fawned on him;
And men have heard the prisoners say,
Who in their rotting dungeons lay,
That from that hour, throughout one day,
The fierce despair and hate which kept 930
Their trampled bosoms almost slept: 
Where, like twin vultures, they hung feeding
On each heart’s wound, wide torn and bleeding,—­
Because their jailors’ rule, they thought,
Grew merciful, like a parent’s sway. 935

I know not how, but we were free: 
And Lionel sate alone with me,
As the carriage drove thro’ the streets apace;
And we looked upon each other’s face;
And the blood in our fingers intertwined 940
Ran like the thoughts of a single mind,
As the swift emotions went and came
Thro’ the veins of each united frame. 
So thro’ the long long streets we passed