Ceaseless she paces to and fro, O heart-sick days! O nights of woe! Nor hand of friend, nor loving face, Nor favor comes, nor word of grace.

It was not I that sinn’d the sin, The ruthless body dragg’d me in; Though long I strove courageously, The body was too much for me.

Dear prison’d soul bear up a space, For soon or late the certain grace; To set thee free and bear thee home, The heavenly pardoner death shall come.

Convict no more, nor shame, nor dole! Depart⁠—a God-enfranchis’d soul!

The singer ceas’d, One glance swept from her clear calm eyes o’er all those upturn’d faces, Strange sea of prison faces, a thousand varied, crafty, brutal, seam’d and beauteous faces, Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them, While her gown touch’d them rustling in the silence, She vanish’d with her children in the dusk.