Passivity

For want of full virtuous zeal oligarchs thrive Against deserving clamor for brighter ideals; And perennially trampled commoners groan Under weight no inured villain distantly feels. Bereft of real fighting energy better humans Give in to the more determined aims to slay Life's fairer side and reward villainy's titans; Enabling winds that fuel evil's choking sway. Vice is a flightless bird cast in wingless youth; And his bold victims must know this total truth: Kind men unwilling to act knit wing and plume That latently promote all enemy gall and fume. And culpable crime's not by commission alone, But by hesitations to clip his spiraling webs too; They're held to have fired with the outlaw’s gun, Quiet eyes that see the victim thus cruelly gone. Even much more to blame is the idle watcher, Than cold-blooded hands that steal or torture.