If the wicked gods were willing (Pray it never may be true!) That a universal chilling Should ensue Of the sentiment of loving,-- If they made a great undoing Of the plan of turtle-doving, Then farewell all poet-lore, Evermore. If there were no more of billing There would be no more of cooing And we all should be but owls-- Lonely fowls Blinking wonderfully wise, With our great round eyes-- Sitting singly in the gloaming and no longer two and two, As unwilling to be wedded as unpracticed how to woo; With regard to being mated, Asking still with aggravated Ungrammatical acerbity: "To who? To who?" TO A CENSOR. "The delay granted by the weakness and good nature of our judges is responsible for half the murders."--_Daily Newspaper_. Delay responsible? Why, then; my friend, Impeach Delay and you will make an end. Thrust vile Delay in jail and let it rot For doing all the things that it should not. Put not good-natured judges under bond, But make Delay in damages respond. Minos, Aeacus, Rhadamanthus, rolled Into one pitiless, unsmiling scold-- Unsparing censor, be your thongs uncurled To "lash the rascals naked through the world." The rascals? Nay, Rascality's the thing Above whose back your knotted scourges sing. _Your_ satire, truly, like a razor keen, "Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen;" For naught that you assail with falchion free Has either nerves to feel or eyes to see. Against abstractions evermore you charge You hack no helmet and you need no targe. That wickedness is wrong and sin a vice, That wrong's not right and foulness never nice, Fearless affirm. All consequences dare: Smite the offense and the offender spare. When Ananias and Sapphira lied Falsehood, had you been there, had surely died. When money-changers in the Temple sat, At money-changing you'd have whirled the "cat" (That John-the-Baptist of the modern pen) And all the brokers would have cried amen! Good friend, if any judge deserve your blame Have you no courage, or has he no name? Upon his method will you wreak your wrath, Himself all unmolested in his path? Fall to! fall to!--your club no longer draw To beat the air or flail a man of straw. Scorn to do justice like the Saxon thrall Who cuffed the offender's shadow on a wall. Let rascals in the flesh attest your zeal-- Knocked on the mazzard or tripped up at heel! We know that judges are corrupt. We know That crimes are lively and that laws are slow. We know that lawyers lie and doctors slay; That priests and preachers are but birds of pray; That merchants cheat and journalists for gold Flatter the vicious while at vice they scold. 'Tis all familiar as the simple lore That two policemen and two thieves make four.