Poems (Hoffman)/A Prisoner

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A PRISONER.
I am your prisoner, old mother earth,A prisoner glad to stay;For the only gate from your prison forthIs shrouded in mystery.
Could I climb the steeps of the golden stars,I would break your chains to-night;Or, could I ascend the sunset bars,Thy prisoner would take her flight.
But no ladder leans to the sunset skies,And no stairs to the "milky way";I have no wings like the bird to rise,So a prisoner still I stay.
A prisoner chained to this little ball,With no power to rise beyond;A prisoner shut in from the flaming wall,That the universe spreads around.
I know there are regions unexplored,In boundless immensity,Beyond where human thought has soaredOr human eye can see.
But there's only one gate, old mother earth,That each must pass alone;One dark, dark road that leadeth forthTo the great, the wide unknown.
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Does a ladder up from its gloom ascend,More bright than the sunset bars?This end is clouded, the other endIs planted beyond the stars.
I shall stand sometime by that lonely gate,And its solemn silence know;I shall grope in the valley dark, and wait'Till the message comes to go.
I shall pass its portals and journey forth,To fathom its mystery;I shall break your fetters, old mother earth,And your prisoner shall be free.

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