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.