ld 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!

SEG.
But then if murde