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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=117483" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Washington City Prison</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thou dark and drear and melancholy pile!<br>Who seemest, like a guilty penitent,<br>To brood o'er horrors in thy bosom pent,<br>Until the sunbeams that around thee smile,<br>And the glad breath of heaven, have become<br>A hatred and a mockery to thy gloom—<br>Stern fabric! I'll commune with thee awhile!<br>And from thy hollow echoes, and the gale<br>That moans round thy dark cells, win back the tale<br>Of thy past history;—give thy stones a tongue,<br>And bid them answer me, and let the sighs<br>That round thy walls so heavily arise,<br>Be vocal, and declare from whence they sprung;<br>And by what passion of intense despair—<br>What aching throb of life consuming care,<br>From the torn heart of anguish they were wrung.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Receptacle of guilt! hath guilt, alone,<br>Stain'd with its falling tears thy foot-worn floor,<br>When the harsh echo of the closing door<br>Hath died upon the ear, and flinging prone<br>His form upon the earth, thy chilling gloom<br>Seem'd to the wretch the sentence of his doom—<br>Say, bear'st thou witness to no heart-wrung groan,<br>Bursting from sinless bosoms, whom the hand<br>Of tyrant power hath sever'd from the band<br>Of the earth's holiest and dearest things,<br>And thrust amidst thy darkness? Speak! declare<br>If only the rude felon's curse and prayer,<br>Mix'd with wild wail and wilder laughter rings<br>Within those dreary wall!—or if there be<br>No spirit fainting there with agony,<br>That not from their own crimes, but foul oppression springs.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ha! am I answer'd?—in that startling cry,<br>Bursting from some wild breast, with anguish riven,<br>And rising up to register in heaven<br>Its blighting tale of outrage—the reply<br>Was heard distinctly terrible.—It sprung<br>From a sad household group, who wildly clung<br>Together, in their frantic agony,<br>Till they were torn by savage hands apart,<br>Fond arms from twining arms, and heart from heart,<br>Never to meet again! what had they done,<br>Thou tool of avarice and tyranny!—<br>That they should thus be given o'er to thee,<br>And thy guilt-haunted cells?—were sire and son,<br>Mother and babe, all partners in one crime,<br>As dreadful as the fate that through all time,<br>Clings to them with a grasp they may not shun?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No!—let the tale be spoken, though it burn<br>The cheek with shame to breathe it—let it go<br>Forth on the winds, that the wide globe may know<br>Our vileness, and the rudest savage turn<br>And point, with taunting finger, to the spot<br>Whereon thou standest; that all men may blot<br>Our name with its deserved taint, and spurn<br>Our vaunting laws of justice with the heel<br>Of low contumely; that every peal<br>Of triumph, may be answer'd with a shout<br>Of biting mockery; and our starry flag,<br>Our glorious banner! may, dishonour'd, drag<br>Its proud folds in the dust, or only flout<br>The gales of heaven, to be a broader mark<br>For scorn to spit at—oh, thou depôt dark,<br>Where souls and human limbs are meted out,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In fiendish traffic:—no! those weeping ones<br>Have done no evil—but their brother's hand,<br>Hath rudely burst the sacred household band,<br>And given, with heart more flinty than thy stones,<br>His victims to thy keeping, and thy chains,<br>Till he hath sold them!—they within whose veins<br>Blood like his own is coursing, and whose moans<br>Are torn from hearts as deathless as his own!<br>And there thou stand'st!—where Freedom's altar stone<br>Is darken'd by thy shadows,—and the cry,<br>That thrills so fearfully upon the air,<br>With its wild tale of anguish and despair,<br>Blends with the paeans that are swelling high,<br>To do her homage!—I have sometimes felt<br>As I could hate my country for her guilt,—<br>Until in bitter tears the mood went by.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Elizabeth+Margaret+Chandler">Elizabeth Margaret Chandler</a> from <i>Poetical Works</i><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=117483" data-title="Washington City Prison de Elizabeth Margaret Chandler" data-description="Thou dark and drear and melancholy pile!/Who seemest, like a guilty penitent,/To brood o'er horrors in thy bosom pent,/Until the sunbeams that around thee smile,/And the glad breath of heaven, have become/A hatred and a mockery to thy gloom—/Ste..."></div>
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