IF these chained feet were free to come and go,
⁠And at their own will wander through this Isle,
Seeking cool shaded paths, and, fast or slow,
⁠Choose their own pace, none following the while;
If I might take the memory of this Sun
⁠To dream upon in cold, dark Winter days,
No more constrained to tell out one by one,
⁠The languid hours beneath his fervent rays—
Then this, my woful place of banishment,
⁠My mournful prison-house of misery,
Being no longer mine in punishment,
⁠Unchanged itself would yet be changed to me;
And finding sweet what now most bitter is,
⁠My heart would love what once it loathed, I wis.