THE FRENCH "SERPENTINE DANCE;"
OR, PAS DE PANAMA.
Born, 1834. Died, Dec. 23, 1892.
["He will be missed far more by lawyers and the world at large than many men who hold more important offices in his profession."—The Times.]
Companions of his ardent youth,
Or comrades of his riper years;
The poor who felt his kindly ruth,
And mourn him with unpurchased tears;
Men of the world whose mordant sense
Shorn of all maudlin sentiment
Seemed the sharp touchstone of pretence;
Soft hearts on swift world-bettering bent,
All miss, all mourn the man whom all
Responsive found to each high call.
Old long-dead days of boisterous mirth,
Far dim-seen hours of arduous fight
When gaiety possessed the earth,
When morning felt no fear of night;
School-form, field, footlights, club! Eheu
Fugaces! These, indeed, are fled,
But thoughts of dashing Montagu,
That dauntless soul now lying dead,
After long fight with pitiless pain
Make the old memories live again.
Before the triumphs of the Court,
Before the honours of the Bench,
Wild days there were of toil and sport,
Long ere our brows had learned to blench
At threatenings of the first grey hair.
Ah! cordial comrade, champion stout,
The fierce ordeal you had to bear
Is ended; fortune's final flout
Has fallen, and that gallant breast
Is still at last in well-earned rest.
It was your happy lot to blend
Sound brain and sympathetic heart;
The loyal service of a friend,
With worldly wisdom keen and tart.
Shrewd advocate and councillor keen,
You knew the world, yet pitied it;
Compassion mild, not cynic spleen
Tempered the edge of caustic wit.
Farewell! It dims much pomp and state,
Your title—"Poor Man's Magistrate!"