Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886)

(On Reading the Account of His Imprisonment)

AH! who may guess, who yet was never tried,

How fearful the temptation to reply

With wrong for wrong; yea, fiercely to defy

In spirit, even where action is denied?

Therefore praise waits on thee, not drawn aside

By this strong lure of hell; on thee, whose eye,

Being formed by love, could everywhere descry

Love, or some workings unto love allied;

And benediction on the grace that dealt

So with thy soul; and prayer, more earnest prayer,

Intenser longing than before we felt,

For all that in dark places lying are;

For captives in strange lands; for them who pine

In depth of dungeon, or in sunless mine.