Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/37

 THE GREEN BAG

LAW BY T. DABNEY MARSHALL FOR you to-day our gates we open wide And loving hands in greeting now extend. In' you is symbolized the Law, the shield Which blunts the sword which ruthless might Would lift against the weak, — the Law, which makes Of men no more a savage blood-red horde, where each Unchecked doth seek his own, but slowly builds Of them a nation proud and free, which naught But justice rules, which naught but right obeys. The Power that shaped the varied earth, and lit The fire of all the stars, and then evoked Unconscious dust to sensate life and gave To clay a soul, doth rule by law, whose leash Not even titan stars may loose. Each sun that wheels An isle of flame across the sea of space, Each bloom that from its heart a perfume pants, Alike doth own the sway of all-pervading law, And as it guides, they move to ends and goals To them unknown. For, man, of all, alone, Seems free to choose his act and shape his life. The law, that Power ordained, exists, and marks The path that leads to life; but he is free To walk therein, or go astray; he breaks This law by impulse wild, or else he errs, Because he knows it not, and goes to dooms The lawless meet, or walk the way this law Decrees shall lead unto the larger life And destinies the race at last shall reach, And thus his end fulfills. This law is hidden in the heart of things, Unseen, unknown, but ever dimly dreamed And felt 'Tis slowly brought to light by thought That broods and weighs, by deeds that test and prove, The acts this all-pervading law ordains We name the right, and this the thinker finds, Or thinks he finds, and with persuasive voice Proclaims. Enacted into law, you make this right Prevail, and test the dream by proving deed, And by the fruitage of the dream make known Its worth and truth. It is the sages' task The right to find, and yours to make the right Observed, and thus you twain do help to build The over-man and lift the race from blind Impulsive deeds of wayward passion born Unto the ways which reason rules, and, ruling,

thrones Its servitors as earth's unquestioned lords. You are as priests, who in Law's temples serve, And thus are they whom Fate doth call to serve

Man best, for more than all is law to man. All things else save the law do minister To passing needs, or pour sweet anodynes For transient hurts, or lift swift drained cups To swiftly dying joys which by their swiftness'mock The hearts they thrill. But law abides and shapes The whole of life, and makes us what we are. As are its laws, the nation is. It stands a dream Of right incarnate made. It takes and binds The scattered might of weakling men to powers That topple down a tyrant's throne, and makes The babe, with justice armed, a Caesar's peer. Before man breathes the Law has heard his cry, And for his toddling feet provision made, And like the Lord it slumbers not, nor sleeps, But holds us all in its protecting arms, And dead, it guards man's dust, and pours the' gold The dumb blue hand no more may hold or keep Into the laps of those our hearts in life Have loved. But, ever as the years unroll, they shape A newer world, and that which yesterday Was right to-morrow stands a thing outworn, Nor checks the newer foe, forever born. So like the Power, which, creating, gropes And feels its way through myriad forms and climbs From dust to lowly bloom and mindless beast, Until at last it has achieved the man, So law has sought its goal in many ways, And slowly seeks at last to build the state, Where all the powers that in us latent lie Shall come to golden bloom and men as angels be. As on the earth the old imperfect life Lives often on and clogs the larger life And yet at last goes down, in that fell fight Forever waged, where good to better yields, So in the fane of law old idols stand, Yet one by one they fall, and ever law To slow perfection strides. Not priests alone Are you, but soldiers who to call of Truth's Triumphant trumpets march adown the years Across the world, and strive to usher in _The golden year that with its gleam forelights Your brows. The dawn of God must break, Wherein no blind and bandaged Justice rules With scales which all-unswerving weigh,'with]sword Which all-unpitying smites. Let Justice be With softer virtues ringed and haloed round. Once in Law's marmoreal halls she ruled Alone, but is companioned now. O let