From my cell, I look back on the world-from
my cell,
And think I am not the less free
Than the serf and the slave who in misery dwell
In the street and the lane and the lea.
What fetters have I that ye have not as well,
Though your dungeon be larger than mine?
For England’s a prison fresh modelled from
hell,
And the jailors are weakness and crime.
In my cell, in my cell!-Yet I should not
repine
Tho’ lying in Solitude’s lap:
These walls will all crumble, far sooner than
time
Can raze them by siege and by sap.
They may shut out the sky-they may shut
out the light
With the barriers and ramparts they raise:
But the glory of knowledge shall pierce in
despite,
With the sun of its shadowless days.
They may stifle the tongue with their silencing
rules,
They may crush us with cord and with block:
But oppression and force are the folly of fools,
That breaks upon constancy’s rock.
They shall hear us again on the moorland and
hill,
Again in street, valley and plain:
They may beat us once more-but we’ll rush at
them still-
Again-and again-and again!
(Ernest Jones)
More Poetry from Ernest Jones:
Ernest Jones Poems based on Topics: Light, Hell, Time, Sadness, Slavery, Success, Crime, Wisdom & Knowledge, Solitude, Fool, Stupidity- The Painter Of Florence (Ernest Jones Poems)
- The Battle-Day, Or, The Lost Army (Ernest Jones Poems)
- The Life Of A Flower (Ernest Jones Poems)
- The March Of Freedom (Ernest Jones Poems)
- Leawood Hall (Ernest Jones Poems)
- Plough And Loom (Ernest Jones Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Light Poems, Sadness Poems, Time Poems, Success Poems, Wisdom & Knowledge Poems, Hell Poems, Fool Poems, Slavery Poems, Crime Poems, Stupidity Poems, Solitude PoemsBased on Keywords: shadowless, raze, serf, modelled, silencing, more-but, again-and, jailors, sky-they, world-from