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Law and Poetry
by James WilliamsIn days of old did law and rime
A common pathway follow,
For Themis in the mythic time
Was sister of Apollo.
The Hindu statutes tripped in feet
As daintily as Dryads,
And law in Wales to be complete
Was versified in triads.
The wise Alfonso of Castile
Composed his code in metre
Thereby to make its flavour feel
A little bit the sweeter.
But law and rime were found to be
A trifle inconsistent,
And now in statutes poetry
Is wholly non-existent.
Still here and there some advocate
Before his fellows know it
Has had bestowed on him by fate
The laurel of the poet.
Let him who has been honoured so,
In truth a rara avis,
Find precedents in Cicero
And our Chief Justice Davis;
And more than all in Cino; he,
So plaintive a narrator
Of fair Selvaggia's cruelty,
Won fame as a glossator.
Let him remember Thomas More
And Scott and Alciatus,
And Grotius with an ample store
Of most divine afflatus.
But let him, if his bread and cheese
Depend on his profession,
Bethink him that the art of these
Was not their sole possession.
The stream that flows from Helicon
Is scarcely a Pactolus,
A richer prize is theirs who con
Dull treatises on dolus.
'Tis well that some bold spirits dare
To cut themselves asunder
From bonds of law like old Moli're,
While lawyers gaze in wonder.
The world had been a poorer place
Had Goethe lived by pleading
Or Tasso won a hopeless case
With Ariosto leading.