The Caged Lion

Lion, like a captive king,
Sad behind thy prison grate,
Monarch, how I long to bring
Back to thee thy lost estate!

Where thy royal kindred live—
Where thy native sky is warm,
Sufferer, how I long to give
Freedom to that noble form!

Gladly would I know thee there,
Bounding over Afric's plain,
Wildly, with the desert air
Wafting wide thy flowing mane.

Are there words that can describe
What thou wast, at liberty,
When "The Lion of the tribe
Of Judah" names his type in thee?

Here, beneath thy keeper's hand,
Where the blasts of winter freeze,
Think'st thou of that palmy land,
Thy mild country o'er the seas?

Seen but through thy prison bars,
Round thee set so strong and thick,
Do not sun, and moon, and stars
Make thy cowering spirit sick?

Grace, and majesty, and power
Were thy gifts by nature made;
Yet, in one unhappy hour,
All to lose, wast thou betrayed.

When thou first was snared and caught,
Never after to be free,
How thy mighty spirit wrought
In thee, like a troubled sea!

But thou didst not, couldst not think
Of the deep indignity,
To which thou then wast doomed to sink—
Of the exile thou must be.

Oh! that quenched and languid eye
Tells me of a pining heart:
Homesick prisoner, sooner die
Than remain the thing thou art.

Liberty to me and mine—
Liberty is life and breath!
So no less to thee and thine—
Bonds to both but lingering death.