Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,                  In a suit of shabby grey:
               His cricket cap was on his head,
                 And his step seemed light and gay,
               But I never saw a man who looked
                 So wistfully at the day.
 
               I never saw a man who looked
                 With such a wistful eye
               Upon that little tent of blue
                 Which prisoners call the sky,
               And at every wandering cloud that trailed
                 Its raveled fleeces by.
 
               He did not his hands, as do
                 Those witless men who dare
               To try to rear the changeling Hope
                 In the cave of black Despair:
               He only looked upon the sun,
                 And drank the morning air.
 
               He did not wring his hands nor weep,
                 Nor did he or pine,
               But he drank the air as though it held
                 Some healthful ;
               With open mouth he drank the sun
                 As though it had been wine!
 
               And I and all the souls in pain,
                 Who tramped the other ring,
               Forgot if we ourselves had done
                 A great or little thing,
               And watched with gaze of dull amaze
                 The man who had to swing.
 
               And strange it was to see him pass
                 With a step so light and gay,
               And strange it was to see him look
                 So wistfully at the day,
               And strange it was to think that he
                 Had such a debt to pay.
 
               For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
                 That in the spring-time shoot:
               But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
                 With its adder-bitten root,<............