But he sings as a man conscious of his loneliness and without hope.

It is only in a dream that he sees Corruption, "Lady Mede," brought to trial, and the world repenting at the preaching of Reason.

In the waking life reason finds no listeners.

The poet himself is looked upon--he tells us bitterly--as a madman.

There is a terrible despair in the close of his later poem, where the triumph of Christ is only followed by the reign of Antichrist; where Contrition slumbers amidst the revel of Death and Sin; and Conscience, hard beset by Pride and Sloth, rouses himself with a last effort, and seizing his pilgrim staff, wanders over the world to find Piers Ploughman.
[Sidenote: Praemunire] The strife indeed which Langland would have averted raged only the fiercer as the dark years went by.