Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/413

From those old days to this, appears
This symbol of the vernal hue,
In verse and romance we may trace
Its presence all the ages through.

Kit Marlowe knew it, Cibber too,
And Dickens oft has well portrayed
The barrister with his green bag
And robe and wig for court arrayed.
We see him now, as through the gloom
And fog of London town he goes;
To Lincoln's Inn he trudges on,
His stern, knit brows his wisdom shows.

And in his hand he's clasping close
A bag of green, the texture thin,
'T is made of baize, its size about
The same they now put fiddles in.
A fitting satire on the times,
And these degenerated days,
When lawyers use the bag no more
And fiddlers ape their ancient ways.

We look adown the path of time
The gray old world has slowly crept,
Where many a dear old custom lies
By the wayside where it long has slept;
What 's left us of the old green bag—
That sterling friend in days of yore?
Naught but its wraith, to symbolize
The law and lawyers evermore!

Though faded with the active scenes
Which saw its worth in ages past,
Like dead heroes whose histories
Their grandeur tells while time doth last,
The old green bag is with us now,
In reverent mem'ry strong outlined,
A symbol of the precious freight
That lawyers carry for mankind.

The bag is full of wondrous things,
All, creatures of the fertile brains
Of those who twist a nation's laws
To bind or loose the felon's chains.
There are the papers to the suits,
The writs, and pleas, and arguments;
Drawn ill or done with learned skill,
Of void or potent consequence.

Pandora never felt the pulse
Of expectation's anxious thrill,
Like him who looks into his bag
To find his fate for good or ill.
No treasure-box of pirate bold,
Nor iron-bound coffers of a king,
Holds half the precious freightage that
Is hidden in this eerie thing.

How oft the destinies of men
Are shapen to their final ends,
Perverted to a sorrier lot
Than nature otherwise intends!
Accused of crimes they wot not of,
By circumstances seeming plain,
Their foreheads bear the felon's brand,
Their good names hidden 'neath stain.

There are the written documents,
The pleas for justice and relief,
The brittle or the trenchant blades
Which win the fight or bring to grief.
These scrawled sheets, in diction grave,
For many a life they win a lease;
They flutter in and out of court,
White-winged messengers of peace.

And nestling in the bag we find
The widow's and the orphan's cause
Set forth with righteous earnestness,
To win protection from our laws.
The oppressed and helpless are alike
Saved from the avarice of men;
The miser's canting tyranny
Slinks whining to its rayless den.

The poor and struggling yeomanry
Who wrench a pittance from the soil,
Are snatched from jaws of two grim wolves
Which rend the fruits of all their toil;
One wolf is "Gnawing Hunger" and
The other has a milder name,
A "Landlord's Mortgage" it is called,
But both have fangs which crush the same

Like those who watch for ships at sea,
Which come not while the slow years lag,
So these sad ones with lustrous eyes,
Gaze, wistful, for the old green bag.