Just as the lightning’s flash, without its thunder,
Blasts what it looks on with its venomous eyes!
Or is’t, oh, Captive One! thy life-voice fretting,
That, like a caged-bird wrested from its home,
(Thy fluttering wing its sky paths unforgetting,)
Along thy prison-wires such murmurs come?
I hear thee now! And chafing, ah, how vainly!
For they have chained the death-glance of thine eye —
Sightless as Samson—struggling more insanely —
Thou couldst not if thou wouldst, lie down and die!