Explore "Rochester Castle" by Edith Nesbit on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Blue sky, gray arches, and white, white cloud; / Gray eyes, white hands, and a free, white crowd / Of wheeling, whirling, fluttering things -- / Pink feet, bright feathers, and wide, warm wings.
Thousands of pigeons all the year / Fly in and out of the arches here.
What prisoned hands have torn at the stone / Where your soft hand lies -- oh my heart! -- alone? / What prisoned eyes have grown blind with tears / To see what we see after all these years -- / The free, broad river go smoothly by / And the free, blithe birds 'neath the free, blue sky?
And now -- O Time, how you work your will! / -- The pitiless walls are standing still, / But the wall-flowers blossom on every ledge, / And the wild rose garlands the walls' sheer edge, / And where once the imprisoned heart beat low, / The beautiful pigeons fly to and fro!
In the sad, stern arches they build and pair, / As happy as dreams and as free as air, / And sorrow and longing and life-long pain / Man brings not into these walls again; / And yet -- O my love, with the face of flowers -- / What do we bring in these hearts of ours?