Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/178

 A Poem.

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Xo pull the mantelpieces down for which they 've chanced to pay, Detach the plumbing from the floor and carry it away. What is a lawyer? He who leaves his bed at early morn Xo stop in transitu a car of cotton or of corn; Xo libel argosies to sail upon the turn of tide; Xo ask the court to free the unadulterated bride; Xo claim injunction's awful aid to interdict the sale Of patent soap, protected pills, or copyrighted ale; Xo salve in general the blows of circumstance and fate, Which fall on rich and poor alike, the paltry and the great. You all remember King Canute, and how he stood one day Amid his courtiers on the beach and bade the billows stay: Xhe waves crept rippling up the beach, and Canute had to go. So onward moves the march of law, in spite of solemn speech : Proud man erects his monuments upon the sandy beach, He marks the limits of the law and where the law shall stay, — The tide creeps slowly on, and sweeps his monuments away. Where are the minions of the law who flourished long ago? We miss the once familiar name of excellent John Doe; And where are all the men of straw, that ghostly company? And where J. S., who went to Rome upon the slightest plea? He disliked to go to Dover, but he had a taste for Rome, Though he was lord of Sale and Dale when he remained at home. All, all are gone, and with them gone the glories of that day When advocates were acrobats who juggled for delay, When pleadings artfully confused the question being tried, And justice seldom could prevail until the plaintiff died. Gone are the fictions of the past, but deathless ever stand Their names who made the common law the bulwark of our land : The fame of Mansfield and of Cairns has never brighter shone, And Coke burns lustrous in the light he shed on Littleton. Oh long may learned counsel quote and never quote in vain The principles which Holt, C. J., set forth in language plain, When Coggs's brandy bursting bonds ran riot to the lees, And gave his lordship an excuse to classify bailees. Still lists the student to the tale how Shepherd once let fly That famous squib whose devious course scorched Scott the plaintiff's eye, Wherefrom the moral is deduced in many a learned note That he who sets a firework off should see that he 's remote.
 * Stand still, proud waves; this is my realm; you shall no farther flow!"

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