 
Ope, jealous portal! ope thy cavern womb, Thy pris’ner will not flee its close embrace; He lived and moved too long within a tomb, Beyond its narrow bounds to dream of space. To eat his crust and muse, unvarying lot! Thus, like his beard, his life slow length’ning grew; So long shut out, the world the wretch forgot, His cell his universe,—’twas all he knew. For Memory soon with loving pinions wheeled In circles narrowing each successive flight; Her sickly wings at length enfeebled yield, Too weak to scale the walls that bound his sight. But Hope sat with him once, and cheered his day; And raised his limbs, and kept his lamp alight; Scared by his groans, at length she fled away; And left him lone,—to spend one endless night. What change to him, then, is the vault below, From that where late the captive was confined? But this,—a worm here eats his BODY now; Whilst there it gnawed his slow decaying MIND. E. Button.
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