- description
- # IN THE PRISON PEN
## Overview
"IN THE PRISON PEN" is a poem by Herman Melville, extracted as a chapter from the text file [john_marr_and_other_poems.txt](arke:01KG89J19Y3FNVN5KWASY78BP4). It is part of the [John Marr and Other Poems](arke:01KG8AJ5CWVMSM9AY2938E996H) poetry collection within the larger [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The poem consists of five stanzas.
## Context
The poem is included in the poetry collection [John Marr and Other Poems](arke:01KG8AJ5CWVMSM9AY2938E996H) by Herman Melville. It appears between the poems "THE SWAMP ANGEL" [arke:01KG8AJJ0JES0TEMYS2ZKZG147] and "THE COLLEGE COLONEL" [arke:01KG8AJJ0NKMY7YA85YS1XYAZG] in the collection.
## Contents
The poem depicts the desolate conditions and suffering of prisoners in a prison pen during the year 1864. The verses describe the prisoners' listlessness, vacantness, and the mental and physical toll of their confinement. The poem evokes imagery of a barren landscape, swarming ghosts, and the effects of famine and disease. It portrays the prisoners' struggle for survival, their descent into swoons, and the grim reality of death within the prison walls.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.363Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- IN THE PRISON PEN
- end_line
- 3005
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:32.310Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2972
- text
- IN THE PRISON PEN
1864
Listless he eyes the palisades
And sentries in the glare;
’Tis barren as a pelican-beach
But his world is ended there.
Nothing to do; and vacant hands
Bring on the idiot-pain;
He tries to think—to recollect,
But the blur is on his brain.
Around him swarm the plaining ghosts
Like those on Virgil’s shore—
A wilderness of faces dim,
And pale ones gashed and hoar.
A smiting sun. No shed, no tree;
He totters to his lair—
A den that sick hands dug in earth
Ere famine wasted there,
Or, dropping in his place, he swoons,
Walled in by throngs that press,
Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead—
Dead in his meagreness.
- title
- IN THE PRISON PEN