There, beneath the old foundations,
Lay the prisons of the State,
Like the last abodes of vengeance,
In the fabled realms of Fate.
And the tides of life above them,
Drifted ever, near and wide,
As at Venice, round the prisons,
Sweeps the sea's incessant tide.
Never, like the far-off dashing,
Or the nearer rush of waves,
Came the tread or murmur downward,
To those dim, unechoing caves.
There the dungeon clasped its victim,
And a stupor chained his breath.
Till the torture woke his senses,
With a sharper touch than death.
Now, through all the vacant silence,
Reign the darkness and the damp,
Broken only when the traveller
Comes to gaze, with guide and lamp.
All about him, black and shattered,
Eaten with the rust of Time,
Lie the fearful signs and tokens
Of an age when Law was Crime.
And the guide, with grim precision,
Tells the dismal tale once more,
Tells to living men the tortures
Living men have borne before.
Well that speechless things, unconscious,
Furnish forth that place of dread,
Guiltless of the crimes they witnessed,
Guiltless of the blood they shed;
Else what direful lamentations,
And what revelations dire,
Ceaseless from their lips would echo,
Tossed in memory's penal fire.
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