Then, since a Trial ensued, a touch o' the same To sober us, flustered with frothy talk, And teach our common sense its helplessness. For why deal simply with divining-rod, Scrape where we fancy secret sources flow, And ignore law, the recognized machine, Elaborate display of pipe and wheel Framed to unchoke, pump up and pour apace Truth till a flowery foam shall wash the world? The patent truth-extracting process,—ha? Let us make that grave mystery turn one wheel, Give you a single grind of law at least! One orator, of two on either side, Shall teach us the puissance of the tongue —That is, o' the pen which simulated tongue On paper and saved all except the sound Which never was. Law's speech beside law's thought? That were too stunning, too immense an odds: That point of vantage law lets nobly pass. One lawyer shall admit us to behold The manner of the making out a case, First fashion of a speech; the chick in egg, The masterpiece law's bosom incubates. How Don Giacinto of the Arcangeli, Called Procurator of the Poor at Rome, Now advocate for Guido and his mates,— The jolly learned man of middle age, Cheek and jowl all in laps with fat and law, Mirthful as mighty, yet, as great hearts use, Despite the name and fame that tempt our flesh, Constant to that devotion of the hearth, Still captive in those dear domestic ties!— How he,—having a cause to triumph with, All kind of interests to keep intact, More than one efficacious personage To tranquillize, conciliate and secure, And above all, public anxiety To quiet, show its Guido in good hands,— Also, as if such burdens were too light, A certain family-feast to claim his care, The birthday-banquet for the only son— Paternity at smiling strife with law— How he brings both to buckle in one bond; And, thick at throat, with waterish under-eye, Turns to his task and settles in his seat And puts his utmost means in practice now: Wheezes out law-phrase, whiffles Latin forth, And, just as though roast lamb would never be, Makes logic levigate the big crime small: Rubs palm on palm, rakes foot with itchy foot, Conceives and inchoates the argument, Sprinkling each flower appropriate to the time, —Ovidian quip or Ciceronian crank, A-bubble in the larynx while he laughs, As he had fritters deep down frying there. How he turns, twists, and tries the oily thing Shall be—first speech for Guido 'gainst the Fisc. Then with a skip as it were from heel to head, Leaving yourselves fill up the middle bulk O' the Trial, reconstruct its shape august, From such exordium clap we to the close; Give you, if we dare wing to such a height, The absolute glory in some full-grown speech On the other side, some finished butterfly, Some breathing diamond-flake with leaf-gold fans, That takes the air, no trace of worm it was, Or cabbage-bed it had production from. Giovambattista o' the Bottini, Fisc, Pompilia's patron by the chance of the hour, To-morrow her persecutor,—composite, he, As becomes who must meet such various calls— Odds of age joined in him with ends of youth. A man of ready smile and facile tear, Improvised hopes, despairs at nod and beck, And language—ah, the gift of eloquence! Language that goes, goes, easy as a glove, O'er good and evil, smoothens both to one. Rashness helps caution with him, fires the straw, In free enthusiastic careless fit, On the first proper pinnacle of rock Which offers, as reward for all that zeal, To lure some bark to founder and bring gain: While calm sits Caution, rapt with heavenward eye, A true confessor's gaze, amid the glare Beaconing to the breaker, death and hell. "Well done, thou good and faithful!" she approves: "Hadst thou let slip a fagot to the beach, The crew might surely spy thy precipice And save their boat; the simple and the slow Might so, forsooth, forestall the wrecker's fee! Let the next crew be wise and hail in time!" Just so compounded is the outside man, Blue juvenile pure eye and pippin cheek, And brow all prematurely soiled and seamed With sudden age, bright devastated hair. Ah, but you miss the very tones o' the voice, The scrannel pipe that screams in heights of head, As, in his modest studio, all alone, The tall wight stands a-tiptoe, strives and strains, Both eyes shut, like the cockerel that would crow, Tries to his own self amorously o'er What never will be uttered else than so— Since to the four walls, Forum and Mars' Hill, Speaks out the poesy which, penned, turns prose. Clavecinist debarred his instrument, He yet thrums—shirking neither turn nor trill, With desperate finger on dumb table-edge— The sovereign rondo, shall conclude his Suite, Charm an imaginary audience there, From old Corelli to young Haendel, both I' the flesh at Rome, ere he perforce go print The cold black score, mere music for the mind— The last speech against Guido and his gang, With special end to prove Pompilia pure. How the Fisc vindicates Pompilia's fame.