Stone walls doe not a prison make,
        Nor iron bars a cage;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
        That for an hermitage;
If I have freedome in my love,
        And in my soule am free,
Angels alone that sore above
        Enjoy such liberty.

To Althea, from Prison" is a poem written by the English poet Richard Lovelace in 1642. The poem is one of Lovelace's best-known works, and its final stanza's first line "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage" is often quoted. Lovelace wrote the poem while imprisoned in Gatehouse Prison adjoining Westminster Abbey due to his effort to have the Clergy Act 1640 annulled.^[1]