Sonnet To Silvio Pellico, On Reading The Account Of His Imprisonment.
SONNET TO SILVIO PELLICO,
ON READING THE ACCOUNT OF HIS IMPRISONMENT.
Ah! who may guess, who yet was never tried How fearful the temptation to reply With wrong for wrong, yea fiercely to defy In spirit, even when action is denied? Therefore praise waits on thee, not drawn aside By this strong lure of hell—on thee whose eye Being formed by love, could every where descry Love, or some workings unto love allied— And benediction on the grace that dealt So with thy soul—and prayer, more earnest prayer, Intenser longing than before we felt For all that in dark places lying are, For captives in strange lands, for them who pine In depth of dungeon, or in sunless mine[4].
