A LAST STRAW.
(By One who has to Make Bricks with It.)
["... It is rumoured that a measure will shortly be introduced for transferring the duties of Revising Barristers to Magistrates.">[
Go, tell the budding blooms they'll ne'er have dew more,
Go, doom the summer trees to languish leafless—
A like effect this ultra-fiendish rumour
Works in the drooping bosoms of the Briefless.
No more Reviserships! No paltry pittance
For Themis' harvesters, too often sheafless!
Is this the Constitution, once Great Britain's;
This, your provision for the meekly Briefless?
As well proclaim to such as slave at Sessions,
A world unburglarised and wholly thiefless,
As rob the least rewarded of professions
Of its ancestral comfort for the Briefless.
What's to become of us?—I speak for many,
Idle and "Unemployed," but oh! not griefless;
Please, please kind Government to spare a penny,
Or yet Trafalgar Square shall rouse the Briefless.
Yes! Don't imagine, uncomplaining creatures
Are quite disorganised and limp, and chiefless;
Our jaw is one of our most drastic features,
And Art is long, though Life perforce be Briefless.
