III.

Above me, hark! the long and maniac cry

Of minds and bodies in captivity.

And hark! the lash and the increasing howl,

And the half-inarticulate blasphemy!

There be some here with worse than frenzy foul,

Some who do still goad on the o'er-laboured mind,70

And dim the little light that's left behind

With needless torture, as their tyrant Will

Is wound up to the lust of doing ill:[181]

With these and with their victims am I classed,

'Mid sounds and sights like these long years have passed;

'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close:

So let it be—for then I shall repose.

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