14. 
’The tyrants of the Golden City tremble
At voices which are heard about the streets;
The ministers of fraud can scarce dissemble
The lies of their own heart, but when one meets
Another at the shrine, he inly weets, 1535
Though he says nothing, that the truth is known;
Murderers are pale upon the judgement-seats,
And gold grows vile even to the wealthy crone,
And laughter fills the Fane, and curses shake the Throne.

15. 
’Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds 1540
Abound, for fearless love, and the pure law
Of mild equality and peace, succeeds
To faiths which long have held the world in awe,
Bloody and false, and cold:—­as whirlpools draw
All wrecks of Ocean to their chasm, the sway 1545
Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw
This hope, compels all spirits to obey,
Which round thy secret strength now throng in wide array.

16. 
’For I have been thy passive instrument’—­
(As thus the old man spake, his countenance 1550
Gleamed on me like a spirit’s)—­’thou hast lent
To me, to all, the power to advance
Towards this unforeseen deliverance
From our ancestral chains—­ay, thou didst rear
That lamp of hope on high, which time nor chance 1555
Nor change may not extinguish, and my share
Of good, was o’er the world its gathered beams to bear.

17. 
’But I, alas! am both unknown and old,
And though the woof of wisdom I know well
To dye in hues of language, I am cold 1560
In seeming, and the hopes which inly dwell,
My manners note that I did long repel;
But Laon’s name to the tumultuous throng
Were like the star whose beams the waves compel
And tempests, and his soul-subduing tongue 1565
Were as a lance to quell the mailed crest of wrong.

18. 
’Perchance blood need not flow, if thou at length
Wouldst rise, perchance the very slaves would spare
Their brethren and themselves; great is the strength
Of words—­for lately did a maiden fair, 1570
Who from her childhood has been taught to bear
The Tyrant’s heaviest yoke, arise, and make
Her sex the law of truth and freedom hear,
And with these quiet words—­“for thine own sake
I prithee spare me;”—­did with ruth so take 1575

19. 
’All hearts, that even the torturer who had bound
Her meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled,
Loosened her, weeping then; nor could be found
One human hand to harm her—­unassailed
Therefore she walks through the great City, veiled 1580
In virtue’s adamantine eloquence,
’Gainst scorn, and death and pain thus trebly mailed,
And blending, in the smiles of that defence,
The Serpent and the Dove, Wisdom and Innocence.