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Chains Invisible
- THE lilies in my garden grow,
- Wide meadows ring my garden round,
- In that green copse wild violets blow,
- And pale, frail cuckoo flowers are found.
- For all you see and all you hear,
- The city might be miles away,
- And yet you feel the city near
- Through all the quiet of the day.
- Sweet smells the earth, wet with sweet rain,
- Sweet lilac waves in moonlight pale,
- And from the wood beyond the lane
- I hear the hidden nightingale.
- Though field and wood about me lie,
- Hushed soft in dew and deep delight,
- Yet can I hear the city’s sigh
- Through all the silence of the night.
- For me the skylark nests and sings,
- For me the vine her garland weaves;
- The swallow folds her glossy wings
- To build beneath my cottage eaves.
- But I can feel the giant near,
- Can hear his slaves by daylight weep,
- And, when at last the night is here,
- I hear him moaning in his sleep.
- Oh! for a little space of ground,
- Though not a flower should make it gay,
- Where miles of meadows wrapped me round,
- And leagues and leagues of silence lay.
- Oh! for a wind‐lashed, treeless down,
- A black night and a rising sea,
- And never a thought of London town,
- To steal the world’s delight from me!
