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Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

IV. Desolation

Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871)

THINK ye the desolate must live apart,

By solemn vows to convent-walls confined?

Ah! no; with men may dwell the cloistered heart,

And in a crowd the isolated mind:

Tearless behind the prison-bars of fate,

The world sees not how desolate they stand,

Gazing so fondly through the iron grate

Upon the promised yet forbidden land;

Patience, the shrine to which their bleeding feet

Day after day in voiceless penance turn;

Silence, the holy cell and calm retreat,

In which unseen their meek devotions burn:

Life is to them a vigil, which none share,

Their hopes a sacrifice, their love a prayer.