ON A POLITICAL PRISONER
 
 SHE that but little patience knew,
 From childhood on, had now so much
 A grey gull lost its fear and flew
 Down to her cell and there alit,
 And there endured her fingers' touch
 And from her fingers ate its bit.
 Did she in touching that lone wing
 Recall the years before her mind
 Became a bitter, an abstract thing,
 Her thought some popular enmity:
 Blind and leader of the blind
 Drinking the foul ditch where they lie?
 When long ago I saw her ride
 Under Ben Bulben to the meet,
 The beauty of her country-side
 With all youth's lonely wildness stirred,
 She seemed to have grown clean and sweet
 Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird:
 Sea-borne, or balanced on the air
 When first it sprang out of the nest
 Upon some lofty rock to stare
 Upon the cloudy canopy,
 While under its storm-beaten breast
 Cried out the hollows of the sea.