Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Prison
In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.
Burns—Epistle from Esopus to Maria in Chambers’ Burns’ Life and Work. Vol. IV.
Whene’er with haggard eyes I view
This dungeon that I’m rotting in,
I think of those companions true
Who studied with me at the U-
Niversity of Göttingen.
George Canning—Song. Of One Eleven Years in Prison. Found in The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. Also in Burlesque Plays and Poems, edited by Henry Morley.
Prison’d in a parlour snug and small,
Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall.
Cowper—Retirement. L. 493.
“And a bird-cage, sir,” said Sam. “Veels vithin veels, a prison in a prison.”
Dickens—Pickwick Papers. Ch. XL.
As if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel.
Ezekiel. X. 10.
In durance vile.
William Kendrick—Falstaff’s Wedding. Act I. Sc. 2. Burke—Thoughts on the Present Discontent.
That which the world miscalls a jail,
A private closet is to me.
*****
Locks, bars, and solitude together met,
Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret.
Attributed to Sir Roger L’Estrange. Also to Lord Capel. Found in the New Foundling Hospital for Wit. (Ed. 1786). IV. 40, as a supplementary stanza. See Notes and Queries, April 10, 1909. P. 288.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage,
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage.
Lovelace—To Althea, from Prison. IV.
Doubles grilles à gros cloux,
Triples portes, forts verroux,
Aux âmes vraiment méchantes
Vous représentez l’enfer:
Mais aux âmes innocentes
Vous n’etes que du bois, des pierres, du fer.
Fast closed with double grills
And triple gates—the cell
To wicked souls is hell;
But to a mind that’s innocent
’Tis only iron, wood and stone.
Pelisson—Written on the walls of his cell in the Bastile. (About 1661).
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
Julius Cæsar. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 93.
I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world:
And for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it; yet I’ll hammer it out.
Richard II. Act V. Sc. 5. L. 1.