Poem: “In The Prison Pen” by Herman Melville

Poems From Battle Pieces

Download PDF

American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville – Poems From Battle Pieces
< < < Sheridan At Cedar Creek
The College Colonel > > >

In The Prison Pen

1864

Listless he eyes the palisades
    And sentries in the glare;
’Tis barren as a pelican-beach
    But his world is ended there.

Nothing to do; and vacant hands
    Bring on the idiot-pain;
He tries to think—to recollect,
    But the blur is on his brain.

Around him swarm the plaining ghosts
    Like those on Virgil’s shore—
A wilderness of faces dim,
    And pale ones gashed and hoar.

A smiting sun. No shed, no tree;
    He totters to his lair—
A den that sick hands dug in earth
    Ere famine wasted there,

Or, dropping in his place, he swoons,
    Walled in by throngs that press,
Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead—
    Dead in his meagreness.

< < < Sheridan At Cedar Creek
The College Colonel > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville – Poems From Battle Pieces

If you liked this article, subscribe , put likes, write comments!

Share on social networks

Visit us on Facebook or Twitter

Check out Our Latest Posts

Poems From Battle Pieces

In The Prison Pen

Leave a comment Cancel reply