The court-house park, the broad, bloom-bordered streets,
Are avenues of maples and of elms--
Grander than Tadmor's pillared avenue--
Fair as the fabled garden of the gods.
Beautiful villas, tidy cottages,
Flower gardens, fountains, offices and shops,
All nestle in a dreamy wealth of woods.
"Kind hearts received me. All that wealth could bring--
Refinement, luxury and ease--was theirs;
But I was proud and felt my poverty,
And gladly mured myself among the books
To master 'the lawless science of the law.'
I plodded through the ponderous commentaries--
Some musty with the mildew of old age;
And these I found the better for their years,
Like olden wine in cobweb-covered flasks.
The blush of sunrise found me at my books;
The midnight cock-crow caught me reading still;
And oft my worthy master censured me:
'A time for work,' he said, 'a time for play;
Unbend the bow or else the bow will break.'
But when I wearied--needing sleep and rest--
A single word seemed whispered in my ear--
'_Beggar_,' it stung me to redoubled toil.
I trod the ofttimes mazy labyrinths
Of legal logic--mined the mountain-mass
Of precedents conflicting--found the rule,
Then branched into the exceptions; split the hair
Betwixt this case and that--ran parallels--
Traced from a 'leading case' through many tomes
Back to the first decision on the 'point,'
And often found a pyramid of law
Built with bad logic on a broken base
Of careless '_dicta;_'--saw how narrow minds
Spun out the web of technicalities
Till common sense and common equity
Were strangled in its meshes.
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