And courts and copyholds are empty names: 
Then will be times of joy—­but ere they come,
Havock, and war, and blood must be our doom.” 
   The man here paused—­then loudly for Reform
He call’d, and hail’d the prospect of the storm: 
The wholesome blast, the fertilizing flood —
Peace gain’d by tumult, plenty bought with blood: 
Sharp means, he own’d; but when the land’s disease
Asks cure complete, no med’cines are like these. 
   Our Justice now, more led by fear than rage,
Saw it in vain with madness to engage;
With imps of darkness no man seeks to fight,
Knaves to instruct, or set deceivers right: 
Then as the daring speech denounced these woes,
Sick at the soul, the grieving Guest arose;
Quick on the board his ready cash he threw,
And from the demons to his closet flew: 
There when secured, he pray’d with earnest seal,
That all they wish’d these patriot-souls might feel;
“Let them to France, their darling country, haste,
And all the comforts of a Frenchman taste;
Let them his safety, freedom, pleasure know,
Feel all their rulers on the land bestow;
And be at length dismiss’d by one unerring blow, —
Not hack’d and hew’d by one afraid to strike,
But shorn by that which shears all men alike;
Nor, as in Britain, let them curse delay
Of law, but borne without a form away —
Suspected, tried, condemn’d, and carted in a day;
Oh! let them taste what they so much approve,
These strong fierce freedoms of the land they love.” {2}
   Home came our hero, to forget no more
The fear he felt and ever must deplore: 
For though he quickly join’d his friends again,
And could with decent force his themes maintain,
Still it occurr’d that, in a luckless time,
He fail’d to fight with heresy and crime;
It was observed his words were not so strong,
His tones so powerful, his harangues so long,
As in old times—­for he would often drop
The lofty look, and of a sudden stop;
When conscience whisper’d, that he once was still,
And let the wicked triumph at their will;
And therefore now, when not a foe was near,
He had no right so valiant to appear. 
   Some years had pass’d, and he perceived his fears
Yield to the spirit of his earlier years —
When at a meeting, with his friends beside,
He saw an object that awaked his pride;
His shame, wrath, vengeance, indignation—­all
Man’s harsher feelings did that sight recall. 
   For, lo! beneath him fix’d, our Man of Law
That lawless man the Foe of Order saw;
Once fear’d, now scorn’d; once dreaded, now abhorrd: 
A wordy man, and evil every word: 
Again he gazed—­“It is,” said he “the same
Caught and secure:  his master owes him shame;”
So thought our hero, who each instant found
His courage rising, from the numbers round. 
   As when a felon has escaped and fled,
So long, that law conceives the culprit dead;