VI.

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!