Behold young Florio, armed with quill and brief,
Whose dreams of glory pass beyond belief;
He mounts each morning to his oaken chair
As kings ascend their thrones with regal air,
5And spreads his papers with imperious hand
As one who governs all he can command.
His desk, that modest province, he calls his empire,
And rules its bounds with undiminished fire.
Observe him lift a statute from the shelf
10With all the pomp reserved for law itself,
While lesser clerks, who merely do their work,
Must bow before the duties Florio will shirk.
He quotes a precedent with thundering voice
As though the Court had waited for his choice,
15And turns each petty motion to a cause
That might, he thinks, reshape the very laws.
The office, thus, becomes a battlefield;
Each brief, a lance; each argument, a shield.
Young Harwick, Florio's rival at the bar,
20Prepares his own assault from desks afar,
Like ancient heroes girding for the fray,
They arm themselves for each litigious day.
Their weapons, writs and motions, duly filed,
Are wielded with a fury scarcely mild.
25Yet what great empire hangs upon their strife?
A disputed lease—the crisis of a life!
Ambition leads him onward through his days,
A tireless guide through all its tangled ways,
And like a fox among the hens, his foe
30Creeps ever nearer, striking from below.
Yet pause, and mark what neither Florio sees:
That all his battles end in hollow victories.