The Complaint of Justice

Untoward twins that temper human fate,

Who from your distaff draw the life of man,

Parse, impartial to the highest state,

Too soon you cut what Clotho erst began:

Your fatal dooms this present age may ban,

For you have robb'd the world of such a knight

As best could skill to balance Justice right.

His eyes were seats for mercy and for law,

Favour in one, and Justice in the other:

The poor he smooth'd, the proud he kept in awe;

As just to strangers as unto his brother;

Bribes could not make him any wrong to smother,

For to a lord or to the lowest groom

Still conscience and the law set down the doom.

Delaying law that picks the client's purse,

Nor could this knight abide to hear debated

From day to day (that claims the poor man's curse),

Nor might the pleas be over-long dilated:

Much shifts of law there was by him abated:

With conscience carefully be heard the cause,

Then gave his doom with short dispatch of laws.

The poor man's cry, he thought a holy knell;

No sooner gan their suits to pierce his ears

But fair-ey'd pity in his heart did dwell;

And like a father that affection bears,

So tender'd he the poor with inward tears,

And did redress their wrongs when they did call;

But, poor or rich, he still was just to all.

Oh, woe is me! saith Justice, he is dead;

The knight is dead that was so just a man,

And in Astraea's lap low lies his head

Who whilom wonders in the world did scan:

Justice hath lost her chiefest limb, what then?

At this her sighs and sorrows were so sore,

And so she wept that she could speak no more.