Stern Lawbreaker! yet thou dost wear
The Calumniate 's most malignly mask;
Nor know we anything so dark
As is the taint upon thy task:
Truth burns before thee on her deathbed

And distrust in thy bidding dreads;
Thou dost accuse fair moon of treason,
And the most despised fires of hell,
with thee, fester sick devoid of reason.

To nobler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself resist
Unto thy trickery from this hour.
O let my revulsion have no end!
Give unto me, made bitterly wise,
The spirit to challenge the ghastly lies;
The confidence of freedom try;
Or in the death of Justice thy bondman let me die!