Was Nature ever crueller undone!
Yon bird, whose eyes were fashioned for the light,
The crystal chambers of whose world of sight
Were framed for close communion with the sun,
Sits in eclipse, and evermore will shun
Man, and the friends of his first eagle flight;
A king brought down unto a captive’s plight!
And here he frets, his feathers all awry,
His wings unplumbed, his talons grey with dust,
The golden beak enscaled with idle rust,
His heart unmindful of his home and sky;
One friend he has, in all this world beneath,
To break his bonds, and end his being,—Death!

(A Book of Bristol Sonnets, p. 83)