Till some such out-burst of the elements
     Like this rouses the sleeping fire within;
     And standing thus upon the threshold of
     Another night about to close the door
     Upon one wretched day to open it
     On one yet wretcheder because one more;—­
     Once more, you savage heavens, I ask of you—­
     I, looking up to those relentless eyes
     That, now the greater lamp is gone below,
     Begin to muster in the listening skies;
     In all the shining circuits you have gone
     About this theatre of human woe,
     What greater sorrow have you gazed upon
     Than down this narrow chink you witness still;
     And which, did you yourselves not fore-devise,
     You registered for others to fulfil!

     Fife. 
     This is some Laureate at a birthday ode;
     No wonder we went rhyming.

     Ros. 
     Hush!  And now
     See, starting to his feet, he strides about
     Far as his tether’d steps—­

     Seg. 
     And if the chain
     You help’d to rivet round me did contract
     Since guiltless infancy from guilt in act;
     Of what in aspiration or in thought
     Guilty, but in resentment of the wrong
     That wreaks revenge on wrong I never wrought
     By excommunication from the free
     Inheritance that all created life,
     Beside myself, is born to—­from the wings
     That range your own immeasurable blue,
     Down to the poor, mute, scale-imprison’d things,
     That yet are free to wander, glide, and pass
     About that under-sapphire, whereinto
     Yourselves transfusing you yourselves englass!

     Ros. 
     What mystery is this?

     Fife. 
     Why, the man’s mad: 
     That’s all the mystery.  That’s why he’s chain’d—­
     And why—­

     Seg. 
     Nor Nature’s guiltless life alone—­
     But that which lives on blood and rapine; nay,
     Charter’d with larger liberty to slay
     Their guiltless kind, the tyrants of the air
     Soar zenith-upward with their screaming prey,
     Making pure heaven drop blood upon the stage
     Of under earth, where lion, wolf, and bear,
     And they that on their treacherous velvet wear
     Figure and constellation like your own,
     With their still living slaughter bound away
     Over the barriers of the mountain cage,
     Against which one, blood-guiltless, and endued
     With aspiration and with aptitude
     Transcending other creatures, day by day
     Beats himself mad with unavailing rage!

     Fife. 
     Why, that must be the meaning of my mule’s
     Rebellion—­

     Ros. 
     Hush!