A Prisoner In A Dungeon Deep

A prisoner in a dungeon deep     Sat musing silently;     His head was rested on his hand,     His elbow on his knee.     Turned he his thoughts to future times     Or are they backward cast?     For freedom is he pining now     Or mourning for the past?     No, he has lived so long enthralled     Alone in dungeon gloom     That he has lost regret and hope,     Has ceased to mourn his doom.     He pines not for the light of day     Nor sighs for freedom now;     Such weary thoughts have ceased at length     To rack his burning brow.     Lost in a maze of wandering thoughts     He sits unmoving there;     That posture and that look proclaim     The stupor of despair.     Yet not for ever did that mood     Of sullen calm prevail;     There was a something in his eye     That told another tale.     It did not speak of reason gone,     It was not madness quite;     It was a fitful flickering fire,     A strange uncertain light.     And sooth to say, these latter years     Strange fancies now and then     Had filled his cell with scenes of life     And forms of living men.     A mind that cannot cease to think     Why needs he cherish there?     Torpor may bring relief to pain     And madness to despair.     Such wildering scenes, such flitting shapes     As feverish dreams display:     What if those fancies still increase     And reason quite decay?     But hark, what sounds have struck his ear;     Voices of men they seem;     And two have entered now his cell;     Can this too be a dream?     'Orlando, hear our joyful news:     Revenge and liberty!     Your foes are dead, and we are come     At last to set you free.'     So spoke the elder of the two,     And in the captive's eyes     He looked for gleaming ecstasy     But only found surprise.     'My foes are dead! It must be then     That all mankind are gone.     For they were all my deadly foes     And friends I had not one.'