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IN VINCULIS; SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: A DREAM OF GOOD, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: To do some little good before I die
Last Line: Scorned by the proud but with the poor at peace.
Subject(s): Hope; Prisons & Prisoners; Time; Optimism; Convicts


To do some little good before I die;
To wake some echoes to a loftier theme;
To spend my life's last store of industry
On thoughts less vain than Youth's discordant dream;
To endow the world's grief with some counter-scheme
Of logical hope which through all time should lighten
The burden of men's sorrow and redeem
Their faces' paleness from the tears that whiten;

To take my place in the world's brotherhood
As one prepared to suffer all its fate;
To do and be undone for sake of good,
And conquer rage by giving love for hate;
That were a noble dream, and so to cease,
Scorned by the proud but with the poor at peace.





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