XXI.

But I was waken’d as the dreamers waken, Whom the shrill trumpet and the shriek of dread Rouse up at midnight, when their walls are taken, And they must battle till their blood is shed On their own threshold floor. A path for light Through my torn breast was shatter’d by the might Of the swift thunder-stroke; and freedom’s tread Came in through ruins, late, yet not in vain, Making the blighted place all green with life again.