Prison thoughts Elegy written in the King's bench: In Imitation of Gray. Lines written on the back of a "horse" and All the World's at Law. By a Collegian [i.e. W. T. Thomas] |
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 | Prison thoughts |  |
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Let worn-out suitors in the leaden halls
And tedious avenues of endless Chancery,
Prate of the tardy steps of blind-eyed Justice;
I pine not at the law's delay, not I,
My plaint is rather that she speeds too quickly:
Like waves, that fastly course each other's flow,
'Whelming the wretch, wreck'd on tide-visited rocks,
The griping writ, the wordy declaration,
The quick snapp'd judgment and fell execution,
Rush all-bereaving on th' entangled bankrupt,
Till spent, exhaust, he ceases farther struggle,
And sinks, to die, into his grave, a prison.
—Old Play.
And tedious avenues of endless Chancery,
Prate of the tardy steps of blind-eyed Justice;
I pine not at the law's delay, not I,
My plaint is rather that she speeds too quickly:
Like waves, that fastly course each other's flow,
'Whelming the wretch, wreck'd on tide-visited rocks,
The griping writ, the wordy declaration,
The quick snapp'd judgment and fell execution,
Rush all-bereaving on th' entangled bankrupt,
Till spent, exhaust, he ceases farther struggle,
And sinks, to die, into his grave, a prison.
—Old Play.
| Prison thoughts | |