Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/109

And such as he are in every rank
Of the column that moves with a dismal clank
And a dead-march step toward the rock-bound place
Where the chain-gangs toil—o'er the beetling face
Of the cliff that roots in the Swan's deep tide:
Steep walls of granite on either side,
At the precipice' foot the river wide;
Behind them in ranks the warders fall;
And above them, the Sentry paces the wall.

Year in, year out, has the Sentry stood
On the wall at the foot of the mast.
He has turned from the toilers to watch the flood
Like his own slow life go past.
He has noted the Chains grow fat and lean;
He has sighed for their empty spaces,
And thought of the cells where their end had been,
Where they lay with their poor dead faces,
With never a kiss, or prayer, or knell—
They were better at rest in the river;