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Bribes, perjuries, law-craft, and cunning,
Judicial drollery and punning;
And all the et ceteras that grace
That genteel, gentlemanly place!
Or in the Council Chamber standing
With eloquence of eye and brow,
Your voice the music of commanding,
And fascination in your bow,
Arranging for the civic shows
Your “men in buckram,” as per list,
Your John Does and your Richard Roes,
Those Dummies of your games of whist.
The Council Chamber—where authority
Consists in two words—a majority.
For whose contractors’ jobs we pay
Our last dear sixpences for taxes,
As freely as in Sylla’s day
Rome bled beneath his lictors’ axes.
Where—on each magisterial nose
In colors of the rainbow linger,
Like sunset hues on Alpine snows,
The printmarks of your thumb and finger.
Where he, the wisest of wild-fowl,
Bird of Jove’s blue-eyed maid—the owl,
That feathered alderman, is heard
Nightly, by poet’s ear alone,
To other eyes and ears unknown,
Cheering your every look and word,
And making, room and gallery through,