Meanwhile—long—anxious—weary—still the same

Rolled day and night: his soul could Terror tame—

This fearful interval of doubt and dread,

When every hour might doom him worse than dead;[ia]

When every step that echoed by the gate, 1380

Might entering lead where axe and stake await;

When every voice that grated on his ear

Might be the last that he could ever hear;

Could Terror tame—that Spirit stern and high

Had proved unwilling as unfit to die;

'Twas worn—perhaps decayed—yet silent bore

That conflict, deadlier far than all before:

The heat of fight, the hurry of the gale,

Leave scarce one thought inert enough to quail:

But bound and fixed in fettered solitude, 1390

To pine, the prey of every changing mood;

To gaze on thine own heart—and meditate

Irrevocable faults, and coming fate—

Too late the last to shun—the first to mend—

To count the hours that struggle to thine end,

With not a friend to animate and tell

To other ears that Death became thee well;

Around thee foes to forge the ready lie,

And blot Life's latest scene with calumny;

Before thee tortures, which the Soul can dare, 1400

Yet doubts how well the shrinking flesh may bear;

But deeply feels a single cry would shame,

To Valour's praise thy last and dearest claim;

The life thou leav'st below, denied above

By kind monopolists of heavenly love;

And more than doubtful Paradise—thy Heaven

Of earthly hope—thy loved one from thee riven.

Such were the thoughts that outlaw must sustain,

And govern pangs surpassing mortal pain:

And those sustained he—boots it well or ill? 1410

Since not to sink beneath, is something still!