I

The outlaws in our country are the wretches,

Who wreck the legislatures with their gold,

And with the ruins, form a high stronghold

To sally from, to what good nature fetches

From God to man. What though fine graphic sketches

In magazines show them with shoulders bold

Against the nights flood-gates of dark and cold?

All effort is but life in death-throw stretches.

They are the outlaws, who stop Nature's train

And take its corn and coal for selfish use;

Then, put their shoulders to Night's gate, to loose

Its hinges for a forty-day dark rain,

To drown all life, that they, like Noah, may cruise

Through thick drifts of the dead in heart and brain.