ON A POLITICAL PRISONER

by: W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

      HE that but little patience knew,
      From childhood on, had now so much
      A grey gull lost its fear and flew
      Down to her cell and there alit,
      And there endured her fingers' touch
      And from her fingers ate its bit.
       
      Did she in touching that lone wing
      Recall the years before her mind
      Became a bitter, an abstract thing,
      Her thought some popular enmity:
      Blind and leader of the blind
      Drinking the foul ditch where they lie?
       
      When long ago I saw her ride
      Under Ben Bulben to the meet,
      The beauty of her country-side
      With all youth's lonely wildness stirred,
      She seemed to have grown clean and sweet
      Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird:
       
      Sea-borne, or balanced in the air
      When first it sprang out of the nest
      Upon some lofty rock to stare
      Upon the cloudy canopy,
      While under its storm-beaten breast
      Cried out the hollows of the sea.

"On a Political Prisoner" is reprinted from Michael Robartes and the Dancer. W.B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1921.

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