'Tis my duty, sad but binding.
Free the Wolf--to what good end?
Loose the Snake--what vantage finding?
Faction flusters, Cant appeals
In the name of sham-humanity.
Right, not wrath, my bosom steels;
Softness here were sheer insanity.

_You_'ve my warmest sympathy,
Victim of the new Red Terror!
_My_ caged RAVACHOLS to free
Were the maddest kind of error.
Prison walls and dungeon wards
Love I not, I'm no born gaoler,
But just Law which Freedom guards
_Must_ ignore anarchic railer.

Blind offence of men half mad
'Neath the goad of brute oppression,
Blunderings of fierce fools of fad,
Demoniacal possession
Of red rage at law unjust,
I can check with calm compassion;
But must firmly crush to dust
Murder--in the newest fashion.

Dynamite as Freedom's friend?
'Tis the foul fiend's latest juggle.
We must fight it to the end,
Firm, unfaltering in this struggle.