| FOR moveless limbs no pity I crave, | |
| That never were swift! Still all I prize, | |
| Laughter and thought and friends, I have; | |
| No fool to heave luxurious sighs | |
| For the woods and hills that I never knew. | 5 |
| The more excellent way’s yet mine! And you | |
| |
| Flower-laden come to the clean white cell, | |
| And we talk as ever—am I not the same? | |
| With our hearts we love, immutable, | |
| You without pity, I without shame. | 10 |
| We talk as of old; as of old you go | |
| Out under the sky, and laughing, I know, | |
| |
| Flit through the streets, your heart all me; | |
| Till you gain the world beyond the town. | |
| Then—I fade from your heart, quietly; | 15 |
| And your fleet steps quicken. The strong down | |
| Smiles you welcome there; the woods that love you | |
| Close lovely and conquering arms above you. | |
| |
| O ever-moving, O lithe and free! | |
| Fast in my linen prison I press | 20 |
| On impassable bars, or emptily | |
| Laugh in my great loneliness. | |
| And still in the white neat bed I strive | |
| Most impotently against that gyve; | |
| Being less now than a thought, even, | 25 |
| To you alone with your hills and heaven. | |
