’Within the massy prison’s mouldering courts,
Fearless and free the ruddy children played, 115
Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows
With the green ivy and the red wallflower,
That mock the dungeon’s unavailing gloom;
The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron,
There rusted amid heaps of broken stone 120
That mingled slowly with their native earth: 
There the broad beam of day, which feebly once
Lighted the cheek of lean Captivity
With a pale and sickly glare, then freely shone
On the pure smiles of infant playfulness:  125
No more the shuddering voice of hoarse Despair
Pealed through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes
Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds
And merriment were resonant around.

’These ruins soon left not a wreck behind:  130
Their elements, wide scattered o’er the globe,
To happier shapes were moulded, and became
Ministrant to all blissful impulses: 
Thus human things were perfected, and earth,
Even as a child beneath its mother’s love, 135
Was strengthened in all excellence, and grew
Fairer and nobler with each passing year.

’Now Time his dusky pennons o’er the scene
Closes in steadfast darkness, and the past
Fades from our charmed sight.  My task is done:  140
Thy lore is learned.  Earth’s wonders are thine own,
With all the fear and all the hope they bring. 
My spells are passed:  the present now recurs. 
Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains
Yet unsubdued by man’s reclaiming hand. 145

’Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course,
Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue
The gradual paths of an aspiring change: 
For birth and life and death, and that strange state
Before the naked soul has found its home, 150
All tend to perfect happiness, and urge
The restless wheels of being on their way,
Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life,
Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal: 
For birth but wakes the spirit to the sense 155
Of outward shows, whose unexperienced shape
New modes of passion to its frame may lend;
Life is its state of action, and the store
Of all events is aggregated there
That variegate the eternal universe; 160
Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom,
That leads to azure isles and beaming skies
And happy regions of eternal hope. 
Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on: 
Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk, 165
Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom,
Yet Spring’s awakening breath will woo the earth,
To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower,
That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens,
Lighting the greenwood with its sunny smile. 170