When (she said) one ox of the pair
Died, its comrade in the yoke refused
To eat or move, but stood with head drooping,
Lowing in a brute stupor; then the butcher
Was summoned to dispatch the final task
Thus their exists this dread diminuendo
Down the scale of being?–And one must ask,
Fearfully, an equivalent crescendo
Rises, in some protraction past the sounding
Of sentience, in a Surmised Beyond?