A Prisoner in a Dungeon Deep

A prisoner in a dungeon deep
              Sat musing silently;
His head was rested on his hand,
              His elbow on his knee.
Turned he his thoughts to future times
              Or are they backward cast?
For freedom is he pining now
              Or mourning for the past?

No, he has lived so long enthralled
              Alone in dungeon gloom
That he has lost regret and hope,
              Has ceased to mourn his doom.

He pines not for the light of day
              Nor sighs for freedom now;
Such weary thoughts have ceased at length
              To rack his burning brow.

Lost in a maze of wandering thoughts
              He sits unmoving there;
That posture and that look proclaim
              The stupor of despair.

Yet not for ever did that mood
              Of sullen calm prevail;
There was a something in his eye
              That told another tale.

It did not speak of reason gone,
              It was not madness quite;
It was a fitful flickering fire,
              A strange uncertain light.

And sooth to say, these latter years
              Strange fancies now and then
Had filled his cell with scenes of life
              And forms of living men.

A mind that cannot cease to think
              Why needs he cherish there?
Torpor may bring relief to pain
              And madness to despair.

Such wildering scenes, such flitting shapes
              As feverish dreams display:
What if those fancies still increase
              And reason quite decay?

But hark, what sounds have struck his ear;
              Voices of men they seem;
And two have entered now his cell;
              Can this too be a dream?

'Orlando, hear our joyful news:
              Revenge and liberty!
Your foes are dead, and we are come
              At last to set you free.'

So spoke the elder of the two,
              And in the captive's eyes
He looked for gleaming ecstasy
              But only found surprise.

'My foes are dead! It must be then
              That all mankind are gone.
For they were all my deadly foes
              And friends I had not one.'