To An Insolent Attorney Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDCCEE FFGGH IIJJIIIIKKIILLKKMM NNIIIIOOPPQQ IIIIRRPPIISSIIIITTUUSo Hall McAllister you'll not be warned | A |
My protest slighted admonition scorned | A |
To save your scoundrel client from a cell | B |
As loth to swallow him as he to swell | B |
Its sum of meals insurgent it decries | C |
All wars intestinal with meats that rise | C |
You turn your scurril tongue against the press | D |
And damn the agency you ought to bless | D |
Had not the press with all its hundred eyes | C |
Discerned the wolf beneath the sheep's disguise | C |
And raised the cry upon him he to day | E |
Would lack your company and you would lack his pay | E |
- | |
Talk not of 'hire' and consciences for sale | F |
You whose profession 'tis to threaten rail | F |
Calumniate and libel at the will | G |
Of any villain who can pay the bill | G |
You whose most honest dollars all were got | H |
By saying for a fee 'the thing that's not ' | - |
To you 'tis one to challenge or defend | I |
Clients are means their money is an end | I |
In my profession sometimes as in yours | J |
Always a payment large enough secures | J |
A mercenary service to defend | I |
The guilty or the innocent to rend | I |
But mark the difference nor think it slight | I |
We do not hold it proper just and right | I |
Of selfish lies a little still we shame | K |
And give our villainies another name | K |
Hypocrisy's an ugly vice no doubt | I |
But blushing sinners can't get on without | I |
Happy the lawyer at his favored hands | L |
Nor truth nor decency the world demands | L |
Secure in his immunity from shame | K |
His cheek ne'er kindles with the tell tale flame | K |
His brains for sale morality for hire | M |
In every land and century a licensed liar | M |
- | |
No doubt McAllister you can explain | N |
How honorable 'tis to lie for gain | N |
Provided only that the jury's made | I |
To understand that lying is your trade | I |
A hundred thousand volumes broad and flat | I |
The Bible not included proving that | I |
Have been put forth though still the doubt remains | O |
If God has read them with befitting pains | O |
No Morrow could get justice you'll declare | P |
If none who knew him foul affirmed him fair | P |
Ingenious man how easy 'tis to raise | Q |
An argument to justify the course that pays | Q |
- | |
I grant you if you like that men may need | I |
The services performed for crime by greed | I |
Grant that the perfect welfare of the State | I |
Requires the aid of those who in debate | I |
As mercenaries lost in early youth | R |
The fine distinction between lie and truth | R |
Who cheat in argument and set a snare | P |
To take the feet of Justice unaware | P |
Who serve with livelier zeal when rogues assist | I |
With perjury embracery the list | I |
Is long to quote than when an honest soul | S |
Scorning to plot conspire intrigue cajole | S |
Reminds them their astonishment how great | I |
He'd rather suffer wrong than perpetrate | I |
I grant in short 'tis better all around | I |
That ambidextrous consciences abound | I |
In courts of law to do the dirty work | T |
That self respecting scavengers would shirk | T |
What then Who serves however clean a plan | U |
By doing dirty work he is a dirty man | U |
Ambrose Bierce
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