While upon all, convicts and armed keepers ere they stirr’d, (Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,) A hush and pause fell down a wondrous minute, With deep half-stifled sobs and sound of bad men bow’d and moved to weeping, And youth’s convulsive breathings, memories of home, The mother’s voice in lullaby, the sister’s care, the happy childhood, The long-pent spirit rous’d to reminiscence; A wondrous minute then⁠—but after in the solitary night, to many, many there, Years after, even in the hour of death, the sad refrain, the tune, the voice, the words, Resumed, the large calm lady walks the narrow aisle, The wailing melody again, the singer in the prison sings,

O sight of pity, shame and dole! O fearful thought⁠—a convict soul.

Warble me now for joy of lilac-time, (returning in reminiscence,) Sort me O tongue and lips for Nature’s sake, souvenirs of earliest summer, Gather the welcome signs, (as children with pebbles or stringing shells,) Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air, Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes, Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings, The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor, Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above, All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running, The maple woods, the crisp February days and the sugar-making, The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted, With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset, Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate, The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts,