What sinned I more herein
  Than others, who were also born? 
  Born the bird was, yet with gay
  Gala vesture, beauty’s dower,
  Scarcely ’tis a winged flower
  Or a richly plumaged spray,
  Ere the aerial halls of day
  It divideth rapidly,
  And no more will debtor be
  To the nest it hates to quit;
  But, with more of soul than it,
  I am grudged its liberty. 
  And the beast was born, whose skin
  Scarce those beauteous spots and bars,
  Like to constellated stars,
  Doth from its greater painter win
  Ere the instinct doth begin: 
  Of its fierceness and its pride,
  And its lair on every side,
  It has measured far and nigh;
  While, with better instinct, I
  Am its liberty denied. 
  Born the mute fish was also,
  Child of ooze and ocean weed;
  Scarce a finny bark of speed
  To the surface brought, and lo! 
  In vast circuits to and fro
  Measures it on every side
  Its illimitable home;
  While, with greater will to roam,
  I that freedom am denied. 
  Born the streamlet was, a snake
  Which unwinds the flowers among,
  Silver serpent, that not long
  May to them sweet music make,
  Ere it quits the flowery brake,
  Onward hastening to the sea
  With majestic course and free,
  Which the open plains supply;
  While, with more life gifted, I
  Am denied its liberty.

In Act II.  Clotardo tells how he has talked to the young prince, brought up in solitude and confinement: 

  There I spoke with him awhile
  Of the human arts and letters,
  Which the still and silent aspect
  Of the mountains and the heavens
  Him have taught—­that school divine
  Where he has been long a learner,
  And the voices of the birds
  And the beasts has apprehended.

Descriptions of time and place are very rich in colour.

  One morning on the ocean,
  When the half-awakened sun,
  Trampling down the lingering shadows
  Of the western vapours dun,
  Spread its ruby-tinted tresses
  Over jessamine and rose,
  Dried with cloths of gold Aurora’s
  Tears of mingled fire and snows
  Which to pearl his glance converted.

  Since these gardens cannot steal
  Away your oft returning woes,
  Though to beauteous spring they build
  Snow-white jasmine temples filled
  With radiant statues of the rose;
  Come into the sea and make
  Thy bark the chariot of the sun,
  And when the golden splendours run
  Athwart the waves, along thy wake
  The garden to the sea will say
  (By melancholy fears deprest)—­
  ’The sun already gilds the west,
  How very short has been this day.’

There is a striking remark about a garden; Menon says: 

  A beautiful garden surrounded by wild forest
  Is the more beautiful the nearer it approaches its opposite.