svenson777: And this place our forefathers made for man!This is the process of our love and wisdom,T
svenson777: And this place our forefathers made for man!This is the process of our love and wisdom,To each poor brother who offends against us ~Most innocent, perhaps ~ and what if guilty?Is this the only cure? Merciful God!Each pore and natural outlet shrivell’d upBy ignorance and parching poverty,His energies roll back upon his heart,And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison,They break out on him, like a loathsome plague-spot;Then we call in our pamper’d mountebanks ~And this is their best cure! uncomfortedAnd friendless solitude, groaning and tearsAnd savage faces, at the clanking hour,Seen through the steams and vapour of his dungeon,By the lamp’s dismal twilight! So he liesCircled with evil, till his very soulUnmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformedBy sights of ever more deformity!With other ministrations, thou, O nature!Healest thy wandering and distempered child:Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,Till he relent, and can no more endureTo be a jarring and a dissonant thing,Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,His angry spirit healed and harmonizedBy the benignant touch of love and beauty.~Samuel Taylor ColeridgeTHE DUNGEON -- source link
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