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The list of thine offences? Why dost thou
Attack my stronghold with thy catapult?
And tear me from the dungeons where my life
Is buried? Tell me, didst thou forge my chains,
Thou who wouldst break them?—Thou dost pardon me?
Pitiless despot! even as thy rage,
So must thy clemency its victim crush!
I was by the Long Parliament imprisoned.
By treason I had merited my fate:
I had cast off the sacred yoke; I had
Set off two portions in the soldiers' booty.
And I am punished. In a tower's depths,
Whence bars exclude the light, I pass my days;
The spider from my bed his fragile web
Suspends, wherein the bat his wing entangles.
At night I hear the crawling of the worms;
Athirst am I, and hungry; hot in summer,
In winter, cold. And it is well. I bow,
I set a good example. But for thee,—
By what right dost thou dare to touch the temple?
Shouldst thou disturb a single stone thereof?
That which the saints have bound, canst thou unbind?
And can the traces of the thunderbolt
Be e'er effaced? Me have the saints condemned,
None other hath the right me to absolve;
And 'mid this fawning mob I walk with pride,
Sole living remnant of their past and gone
Authority. A lightning-blasted pine,
E'en at the precipice's foot I show
The noble scar upon my prostrate brow.
And thou wouldst fain by force my fetters break!—
O Englishmen, see what a violent
And savage tyrant treads you under foot!