In that stern Empire, on disruption's brink, Some things you may,--and some you may not,--think; Express yourself, and instantly disgraced, Your steps may point toward a Siberian waste; Your substance confiscated by a court Where equity is but a theme for sport; Extol your theories, proffer your advice, And chains or banishment may be the price. For despot hands, since might's initial sway, Have fashioned chains for worthier hands than they; And oftentimes beneath the tyrant's heel Are crushed the lives which strive for human weal; Who dare to hold the gonfalon aloft For human rights and progress, yes, how oft Since Cain that fratricidal murder wrought, Have death and durance been the price of thought! He who espouses radical reform Invites upon his head the gathering storm; Each forward step from Custom's hackneyed school, Draws forth the floods of scorn and ridicule; Witness the dungeon, guillotine and rack, Chains for the feet and scourges for the back; Bestrewn with insult, diatribe and cuff, The pathway of reform was ever rough; And when reforms, as tidal waves have come, The foremost breakers dash to martyrdom. Perhaps, in youth's enthusiastic heat We may have been a little indiscreet, When we, thus inexperienced and young, Against oppression dared to raise the tongue. Perhaps 'twere best to tarnish manhood's brow With servile adulation, and to bow With craven salaam and obeisance, down In sycophantic homage to a crown. What, though the diadem its blazon rears Above a population's groans and tears! What, though the paths of tyranny be strew'd With suspirations of the multitude! If one but bask within the regal smile, Why strive against injustice, fraud and guile? Or, why enlist the sympathetic pen, Though thrones may crush the liberties of men? One inadvertent hour, some chance remark Was misconstrued with application dark; For little is required as an excuse When private ends are furthered by abuse; Suspicion's tunes are played with greatest ease, When jealousy manipulates the keys. What followed, it were wearisome to tell, Save that we found ourselves within a cell, Charged with sedition and conspiracy, By those more likely to conspire than we. [Illustration: "He towered with mute and massive form A challenge to the gathering storm." _See page 20._] Three days were we, in custody detained, In stern abeyance formally constrained. Within a court, where no protesting word From prisoner or counsel may be heard; A court, where no forensic eloquence May quash the allegations of offence; Our doom was sealed, by a capricious judge Who thereby satisfied a family grudge.