The fearless soldier, who has faced
The serried bayonets' gleam appalling,
For nothing save a pin misplaced
The peaceful nursery has disgraced
With hours of unheroic bawling.
The mighty monarch, whose renown
Fills up the stately page historic,
Has howled to waken half the town,
And finished off by gulping down
His castor oil or paregoric.
The justice, who, in gown and cap,
Condemns a wretch to strangulation,
Has scratched his nurse and spilled his pap,
And sprawled across his mother's lap
For wholesome law's administration.
Ah, life has many a reef to shun
Before in port we drop our anchor,
But when its course is nobly run
Look aft! for there the work was done.
Life owes its headway to the spanker!
Yon seat of justice well might awe
The fairest manhood's half-blown summer;
There Parsons scourged the laggard law,
There reigned and ruled majestic Shaw,—
What ghosts to hail the last new-comer!
One cause of fear I faintly name,—
The dread lest duty's dereliction
Shall give so rarely cause for blame
Our guileless voters will exclaim,
"No need of human jurisdiction!"
What keeps the doctor's trade alive?
Bad air, bad water; more's the pity!
But lawyers walk where doctors drive,
And starve in streets where surgeons thrive,
Our Boston is so pure a city.
What call for judge or court, indeed,
When righteousness prevails so through it
Our virtuous car-conductors need
Only a card whereon they read
"Do right; it's naughty not to do it!"
The whirligig of time goes round,
And changes all things but affection;
One blessed comfort may be found
In heaven's broad statute which has bound
Each household to its head's protection.
If e'er aggrieved, attacked, accused,
A sire may claim a son's devotion
To shield his innocence abused,
As old Anchises freely used
His offspring's legs for locomotion.