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.