Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle, Walk’d out at last, and turn’d into the Strand, To the left hand, Conning some portions of the previous twaddle, And striding with a step that seem’d design’d To represent the mighty March of Mind, Instead of that slow waddle Of thought, to which our ancestors inclin’d-- No wonder, then, that he should quickly find He stood in front of that intrusive pile, Where Cross keeps many a kind Of bird confin’d, And free-born animal, in durance vile-- A thought that stirr’d up all the monkey-bile! The window stood ajar-- It was not far, Nor, like Parnassus, very hard to climb-- The hour was verging on the supper-time, And many a growl was sent through many a bar. Meanwhile Pug scrambled upward like a tar, And soon crept in, Unnotic’d in the din Of tuneless throats, that made the attics ring With all the harshest notes that they could bring; For like the Jews, Wild beasts refuse, In midst of their captivity--to sing. Lord! how it made him chafe, Full of his new emancipating zeal, To look around upon this brute-bastille, And see the king of creatures in--a safe! The desert’s denizen in one small den, Swallowing slavery’s most bitter pills-- A bear in bars unbearable. And then The fretful porcupine, with all its quills Imprison’d in a pen! A tiger limited to four feet ten; And, still worse lot, A leopard to one spot! An elephant enlarg’d, But not discharg’d; (It was before the elephant was shot;) A doleful wanderoo, that wander’d not; An ounce much disproportion’d to his pound. Pug’s wrath wax’d hot To gaze upon these captive creature’s round; Whose claws--all scratching--gave him full assurance They found their durance vile of vile endurance. He went above--a solitary mounter Up gloomy stairs--and saw a pensive group Of hapless fowls-- Cranes, vultures, owls, In fact, it was a sort of Poultry-Compter, Where feather’d prisoners were doom’d to droop: Here sat an eagle, forc’d to make a stoop, Not from the skies, but his impending roof; And there aloof, A pining ostrich, moping in a coop; With other samples of the bird creation, All cag’d against their powers and their wills, And cramp’d in such a space, the longest bills Were plainly bills of least accommodation. In truth, it was a very ugly scene To fall to any liberator’s share, To see those winged fowls, that once had been Free as the wind, no freer than fixed air.