Whose tongue was lithe, e’en now, and voluble
Against his neighbour’s life, and he who laughed
And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame
Blasted before his own foul calumnies,
Are smit with deadly silence.  He, who sold
His conscience to preserve a worthless life,
Even while he hugs himself on his escape,
Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length,
Thy steps o’ertake him, and there is no time
For parley—­nor will bribes unclench thy grasp. 
Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long
Ere his last hour.  And when the reveller,
Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on,
And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life
Like wind, thou point’st him to the dreadful goal,
And shak’st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye,
And check’st him in mid course.  Thy skeleton hand
Shows to the faint of spirit the right path,
And he is warned, and fears to step aside. 
Thou sett’st between the ruffian and his crime
Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand
Drops the drawn knife.  But, oh, most fearfully
Dost thou show forth Heaven’s justice, when thy shafts
Drink up the ebbing spirit—­then the hard
Of heart and violent of hand restores
The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged. 
Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck
The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed,
Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length,
And give it up; the felon’s latest breath
Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime;
The slanderer, horror-smitten, and in tears,
Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged
To work his brother’s ruin.  Thou dost make
Thy penitent victim utter to the air
The dark conspiracy that strikes at life,
And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour
Is come, and the dread sign of murder given.

Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found
On virtue’s side; the wicked, but for thee,
Had been too strong for the good; the great of earth
Had crushed the weak for ever.  Schooled in guile
For ages, while each passing year had brought
Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world
With their abominations; while its tribes,
Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled,
Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice
Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs
Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn: 
But thou, the great reformer of the world,
Tak’st off the sons of violence and fraud
In their green pupilage, their lore half learned—­
Ere guilt had quite o’errun the simple heart
God gave them at their birth, and blotted out
His image.  Thou dost mark them flushed with hope,
As on the threshold of their vast designs
Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik’st them down.

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