Every stanza in this short poem follows the same pattern: someone does something harmful, and the speaker refuses to be broken by it. Cruelty is met with kindness, a fall with a rise, lost freedom with a freer soul, traps with boldness. The speaker never tries to fight back on the attacker's terms. Instead, they turn each blow into a reason to grow stronger.
The feeling begins calm and steady, almost like a vow, then gets more intense. The final stanza makes the shift clear. The image of cut wings suggests someone trying to ground the speaker, but the speaker flies "on my visions," meaning imagination and inner belief can carry them where the body can't. The last line flips the picture entirely: the attacker thinks they're killing a small bird, but the speaker is "a raging Dragon." The mood is defiant and fierce, with a sense of hard-won pride. It's less about revenge than about refusing to be diminished.