Poem by Owen Seaman

Tactless Tactics

Were I a burglar in the dock
With every chance of doing time,
With Justice sitting like a rock
To hear a record black with crime;
If my conviction seemed a cert,
Yet, by a show of late repentance,
I thought I might, with luck, avert
A simply crushing sentence;—

I should adopt, by use of art,
A pensive air of new-born grace,
In hope to melt the Bench's heart
And mollify its awful face;
I should not go and run amok,
Nor in a fit of senseless fury
Punch the judicial nose or chuck
An inkpot at the jury.

So with the Hun: you might assume
He would exert his homely wits
To mitigate the heavy doom
That else would break him all to bits;
Yet he behaves as one possessed,
Rampaging like a bull of Bashan,
Which, as I think, is not the best
Means of conciliation.

For when the wild beast, held and bound,
Ceases to plunge and rave and snort,
The Bench, I hope, will pass some sound
Remarks on this contempt of court;
The plea for mercy, urged too late,
Should prove a negligible cipher,
And when the sentence seals his fate
He'll get at least a lifer.

1. The Spacious Times
2. Lilith Libifera
3. To Mr. William Watson
4. To an Old Fogey
5. The Uses of Ocean

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