When the Prisoner dreams of Light,
Is it the same light that Illuminates you?²
Under a government which imprisons any Unjustly,
The true place for a Just man is also a Prison.³
Here is a man desperately Tugging at his Chains –
Imagining all the while that their clanking
Heralds the Onward march of the World-Spirit.⁴
Fetter’d in hand—but Join’d in Heart.⁵
Man, impatient of his Cage—
Thrills to the soul’s Immortal Rage.⁶
My prison accepts no light except into myself …
My Freedom is not as they want me to be—but to
Enlarge my Prison Cell, and carry on my Song of the Door.⁷
When the hand that lock’d her up gives room—
She’ll Shine through all the Sphere.⁸
Beating your fists against the wall
You break your hands against the wall—
But sometimes not: walls have been known
To Fall, dusk turn to Dawn, and chains be Gone!⁹
Git some Dynamite off the gang that’s
Building the big Bridge down the road—
Blow up the whole prison to Kingdome Come.¹⁰
¹ Tawfiq Zayyad tr. Aida Bamia, Behind Bars
² Pablo Neruda tr. original, The Book of Questions
³ Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
⁴ Theodor Adorno tr. Rodney Livingstone, Reconciliation Under Duress
⁵ Lord Byron, The Prisoner of Chillon
⁶ Angela Morgan, Today
⁷ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Akash & Forché, Four Personal Addresses
⁸ Henry Vaughan, Friends Departed
⁹ Langston Hughes, Dusk
¹⁰ Alice Walker, The Color Purple