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168 Bribes, perjuries, law-craft, and cunning, Judicial drollery and punning; And all the et ceteras that grace That genteel, gentlemanly place! Or in the Council Chamber standing
 * With eloquence of eye and brow,

Your voice the music of commanding,
 * And fascination in your bow,

Arranging for the civic shows
 * Your “men in buckram,” as per list,

Your John Does and your Richard Roes,
 * Those Dummies of your games of whist.

The Council Chamber—where authority Consists in two words—a majority. For whose contractors’ jobs we pay
 * Our last dear sixpences for taxes,

As freely as in Sylla’s day
 * Rome bled beneath his lictors’ axes.

Where—on each magisterial nose
 * In colors of the rainbow linger,

Like sunset hues on Alpine snows,
 * The printmarks of your thumb and finger.

Where he, the wisest of wild-fowl, Bird of Jove’s blue-eyed maid—the owl,
 * That feathered alderman, is heard

Nightly, by poet’s ear alone, To other eyes and ears unknown,
 * Cheering your every look and word,

And making, room and gallery through,