Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 011.djvu/92
human nature cannot conquer impossibilities. Great allowance, then, must be made for the bulk of the profession, on the score of their prejudices and narrowness of feeling. The bright examples which it has offered in walks out of the profession, were purchased at a sacrifice of legal knowledge. While, therefore, great palliation for the lawyer is to be found in the nature of his calling, he should admit his deficiency in matters foreign to it, and not presumptuously interfere beyond "his last." He must not think himself qualified for a legislator, only because he carries the written laws into effect. To perform what is prescribed, requires far less liberal and elevated talent than those necessary in delivering the prescript. Still the ambition of the profession is proverbial, and the effort of the lawyer to rise in the world often costs sacrifices which would be too dear for men of different habits to pay; but he has no scruples where others hesitate, and verily he has his reward! I.
TROUBADOUR SONGS.
1.
The warrior cross'd the ocean's foam,
For the stormy fields of war;
The maid was left in a smiling home,
And a sunny land afar.
His voice was heard where javelin-showers
Pour'd on the steel-clad line;
Her step was midst the summer-flowers,
Her seat beneath the vine.
His shield was cleft, his lance was riven,
And the red blood stain'd his crest;
While she—the gentlest wind of Heaven
Might scarcely fan her breast.
Yet a thousand arrows pass'd him by,
And again he cross'd the seas;
But she had died, as roses die,
That perish with a breeze!
As roses die, when the blast is come,
For all things bright and fair;—
There was Death within the smiling home,
How had Death found her there?
2.
They rear'd no trophy o'er his grave,
They bade no requiem flow;
What left they there, to tell the brave
That a warrior sleeps below?
A shiver'd spear, a cloven shield,
A helm with its white plume torn,
And a blood-stain'd turf on the fatal field,
Where a chief to his rest was borne!
He lies not where his fathers sleep,
But who hath a tomb more proud?
For the Syrian wilds his record keep,
And a banner is his shroud!