Legal poems
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The Emigrants: Book I
© Charlotte Turner Smith
Scene, on the Cliffs to the Eastward of the Town of
Brighthelmstone in Sussex. Time, a Morning in November, 1792.
State's Attorney Fallas
© Edgar Lee Masters
I, the scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker,
Smiter with whips and swords;
Pan in Wall Street
© Stedman Edmund Clarence
Just where the Treasury's marble front Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations;Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont To throng for trade and last quotations;Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold Outrival, in the ears of people,The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled From Trinity's undaunted steeple,--
Even there I heard a strange, wild strain Sound high above the modern clamor,Above the cries of greed and gain, The curbstone war, the auction's hammer;And swift, on Music's misty ways, It led, from all this strife for millions,To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians
Flight into Reality
© Rowley Rosemarie
Dedicated to the memory of my best friend Georgina, (1942-74)and to her husband Alex Burns and their childrenNulles laides amours ne belles prison -Lord Herbert of Cherbury
The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne
© Gelett Burgess
WAKE! For the Hack can scatter into flightShakespere and Dante in a single Night! The Penny-a-liner is Abroad, and strikesOur Modern Literature with blithering Blight.
The Strike Of The Fireworks
© Carolyn Wells
And so they talked and they argued, some for and some against,--
And they progressed no further than they were when they commenced.
Until in a burst of eloquence a queer little piece of punk
Arose in his place and said, "I think we ought to show some spunk.
And I for one have decided, although I am no shirk,
That to-day is a legal holiday and not even fire should work.
The Haughty Actor
© William Schwenck Gilbert
"Too bad," said GIBBS, "my case to shirk!
You must be bad innately,
To save your skill for mighty work
Because it's valued greatly!"
But here he woke, with sudden start.
Economy, A Rhapsody, Addressed to Young Poets
© William Shenstone
Insanis; omnes gelidis quaecunqne lacernis
Sunt tibi, Nasones Virgiliosque vides. ~Mart.
Imitation.
--Thou know'st not what thou say'st;
In garments that scarce fence them from the cold
Our Ovids and our Virgils you behold.
The Secret Whisky Cure
© Henry Lawson
Twas a common sordid marriage, and theres little new to tell
Save the pub to him was Heaven and his own home was a hell:
With the office in between thempurgatory to be sure
And, as far as Jones could make outwell, there wasnt any cure.
Rhymed Plea For Tolerance - Dialogue II.
© John Kenyon
A.
By no faint shame withheld from general gaze,
'Tis thus, my friend, we bask us in the blaze;
Where deeds, more surface-smooth than inly bright,
Snatch up a transient lustre from the light.
The Modest Couple
© William Schwenck Gilbert
When man and maiden meet, I like to see a drooping eye,
I always droop my own - I am the shyest of the shy.
I'm also fond of bashfulness, and sitting down on thorns,
For modesty's a quality that womankind adorns.
The Ring And The Book - Chapter IX - Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius
© Robert Browning
Thus
Would I defend the step,were the thing true
Which is a fable,see my former speech,
That Guido slept (who never slept a wink)
Through treachery, an opiate from his wife,
Who not so much as knew what opiates mean.
Ode to Rae Wilson Esq.
© Thomas Hood
Mere verbiage,it is not worth a carrot!
Why, Socratesor Platowhere's the odds?
Once taught a jay to supplicate the Gods,
And made a Polly-theist of a Parrot!
Some Account Of A New Play
© Richard Harris Barham
Tavistock Hotel, Nov. 1839.
Dear Charles,
- In reply to your letter, and Fanny's,
Lord Brougham, it appears, isn't dead,- though Queen Anne is;
'Twas a 'plot' and a 'farce'- you hate farces, you say -
Take another 'plot,' then, viz. the plot of a Play.
Don Juan: Canto The Thirteenth
© George Gordon Byron
I now mean to be serious;--it is time,
Since laughter now-a-days is deem'd too serious.
The Conference
© Charles Churchill
Grace said in form, which sceptics must agree,
When they are told that grace was said by me;
The Three Warnings
© Hester Lynch Piozzi
The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
