On a Political Prisoner
On a Political Prisoner - meaning Summary
Compassion Beyond Confinement
Yeats presents a detained woman whose quiet patience draws a gull into her cell, suggesting an intimate bond between human dignity and nature. The speaker contrasts her present, hardened intellect with memories of youthful purity seen riding under Ben Bulben. Natural imagery of sea-birds and storm-beaten rocks frames her as fundamentally resilient and noble despite political confinement, inviting reflection on innocence, endurance, and the moral cost of enforced bitterness.
Read Complete AnalysesShe 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.
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