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 Molire,             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.