I have been patient, let me be so yet;

I had forgotten half I would forget,

But it revives—Oh! would it were my lot80

To be forgetful as I am forgot!—

Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell

In this vast Lazar-house of many woes?

Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind,

Nor words a language, nor ev'n men mankind;

Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows,

And each is tortured in his separate hell—

For we are crowded in our solitudes—

Many, but each divided by the wall,

Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods;90

While all can hear, none heed his neighbour's call—

None! save that One, the veriest wretch of all,

Who was not made to be the mate of these,

Nor bound between Distraction and Disease.

Feel I not wroth with those who placed me here?

Who have debased me in the minds of men,

Debarring me the usage of my own,

Blighting my life in best of its career,

Branding my thoughts as things to shun and fear?

Would I not pay them back these pangs again,100

And teach them inward Sorrow's stifled groan?

The struggle to be calm, and cold distress,

Which undermines our Stoical success?

No!—still too proud to be vindictive—I

Have pardoned Princes' insults, and would die.

Yes, Sister of my Sovereign! for thy sake

I weed all bitterness from out my breast,

It hath no business where thou art a guest:

Thy brother hates—but I can not detest;

Thou pitiest not—but I can not forsake.110