For Righteousness' Sake

The age is dull and mean. Men creep,     Not walk; with blood too pale and tame     To pay the debt they owe to shame;     Buy cheap, sell dear; eat, drink, and sleep     Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want;     Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep     Six days to Mammon, one to Cant.     In such a time, give thanks to God,     That somewhat of the holy rage     With which the prophets in their age     On all its decent seemings trod,     Has set your feet upon the lie,     That man and ox and soul and clod     Are market stock to sell and buy!     The hot words from your lips, my own,     To caution trained, might not repeat;     But if some tares among the wheat     Of generous thought and deed were sown,     No common wrong provoked your zeal;     The silken gauntlet that is thrown     In such a quarrel rings like steel.     The brave old strife the fathers saw     For freedom calls for men again     Like those who battled not in vain     For England's Charter, Alfred's law;     And right of speech and trial just     Wage in your name their ancient war     With venal courts and perjured trust.     God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late,     They touch the shining hills of day;     The evil cannot brook delay,     The good can well afford to wait.     Give ermined knaves their hour of crime;     Ye have the future grand and great,     The safe appeal of Truth to Time