Sonnet CCXLIII:
O let me break my slavehood! Link by link
I rend my gyves; not calmly, but with cries
Of anguish, bloody hands and streaming eyes—
In haste, in rage, without a pause to think.
Lo, I am free! and I again may drink
The air of freedom—as yon bird that flies
Straight from the valley to his mountain skies—
And hear no more my shameful fetters clink.
The passion passes; with my own poor hands,
Before the iron has leisure to grow cold,
I trembling gather all the scattered bands;
Refix and rivet each one as of old,
Lest she should wonder where she smiling stands,
Then clank my chains, and proudly cry, ‘Behold!’
