ly taught
Cross-examines as it ought.

Somewhere judgments are obeyed,
Executions are not stayed,
Fees are almost always paid.

Somewhere County Councils press
Banquets on the circuit mess,
Fleshpots in the wilderness.

Somewhere at Assizes grow
Prosecutions row on row,
Every man has six or so.

Somewhere, eager but for right,
Court and counsel cease to cite
Pointless cases recondite.

Somewhere headnotes give the ground
Whereupon the judges found
Judgments generally sound.

Somewhere juries use their sense,
Basing on the evidence
Verdicts of intelligence.

Somewhere rich embroideries
Woven cunningly of lies
Part in twain at truth's clear eyes.

Somewhere justice grows from wrong,
Till the right that suffered long
Sings at last its triumph song.

Somewhere--even in a place
Peopled by a perfect race--
One side holds a losing case.

Somewhere since the world began
Heaven hath made an honest man,
Somewhere in Aldebaran.

Roman Law

I am a "coach" in Roman law by fate,
But Nature must have meant me for a poet,
And while I struggle with a rule or date,
Poetic thoughts intrude before I know it.

The changing sunshine on the summer sea
Drives forth the law of _cessio bonorum_,
_Peculium castrense_ speaks to me
Of Horace and his _Dulce et decorum_.

I see the matine bee among the flowers
Instead of _testamentum militare_,
And wander far away from agent's powers
To picture me again some Maud or Mary.

In truth there is no sequence in the thought,
Why should the title _De Societate_
Suggest, not trading partners, as it ought,
But visions of my last night's valse with Katie?

But worse than this, when I have done my task,
Stern law again asserts her domination,
'Tis cruel 'mid the new-mown hay to bask,
And find one's mind is running on novation;

Or in the dusk, when glow-worms light the moss,
To hear the distant voice of Philomela
Expound the three varieties of _dos_
And wax right eloquent about _tutela_.

I had a little respite yesterday,
Dining with one who well knew how to dine us,
But when I slept, the charm soon fled away,
I dreamed I was a _praetor peregrinus_.

Dismasted in the deep of law I lie,
A poor