Explore "The Beasts in the Tower" by Charles Lamb on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Within the precincts of this yard, / Each in his narrow confines barr'd, / Dwells every beast that can be found / On Afric or on Indian ground; / How different was the life they led / In those wild haunts where they were bred, / To this tame servitude and fear, / Enslaved by man, they suffer here!
In that uneasy close recess / Couches a sleeping lioness; / That next den holds a bear; the next / A wolf, by hunger ever vext: / There, fiercer from the keeper's lashes, / His teeth the fell hyena gnashes; / That creature on whose back abound / Black spots upon a yellow ground, / A panther is -- the fairest beast / That haunteth in the spacious East: / He underneath a fair outside / Does cruelty and treachery hide.