Law and Poetry

    In 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 Molière,
        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.