"Laocoon's torture, dignifying pain--
A father's love and mortal's agony
With an immortal's patience blending:--vain
The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain
And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp,
The old man's clench; the long envenomed chain
Rivets the living links,--the enormous asp
Enforces pang on pang and stifles gasp on gasp."