7.
Thieves and murderers, hands yet red with blood and tongues yet black with lies,
Clap and clamour—“God for Gladstone and Parnell!”
Truth, unscared and undeluded by their praise or blame, replies—
“Is the gaol of fraud and bloodshed heaven or hell?”
8.
Old men eloquent, who truckle to the traitors of the time,
Love not office—power is no desire of theirs:
What if yesterday their hearts recoiled from blood and fraud and crime?
Conscience erred—an error which to-day repairs.