Poem of the week: In the Prison Pen by Herman Melville | Herman Melville
In the Prison PenListless he eyes the palisadesAnd sentries in the glare;’Tis barren as a pelican-beach —But his world is ended there.Nothing to do; and vacant handsBring on the idiot-pain;He tries to think — to recollect,But the blur is on his brain.Around him swarm the plaining ghostsLike those on Virgil’s shoreA wilderness of faces dimAnd pale ones gashed and hoar.A smiting sun. No shed, no tree;He totters to his lair —A den that sick hands dug in earthEre famine wasted there,Or, dropping by his place, he swoons,Walled…