The Lawyers' Ways

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906



I've been list'nin' to them lawyers  
    In the court house up the street,
  An' I've come to the conclusion
    That I'm most completely beat.
  Fust one feller riz to argy,
    An' he boldly waded in
  As he dressed the tremblin' pris'ner
    In a coat o' deep-dyed sin.
  Why, he painted him all over
   In a hue o' blackest crime,
 An' he smeared his reputation
   With the thickest kind o' grime,
 Tell I found myself a-wond'rin',
   In a misty way and dim,
 How the Lord had come to fashion
   Sich an awful man as him.
 Then the other lawyer started,
   An' with brimmin', tearful eyes,
 Said his client was a martyr
   That was brought to sacrifice.
 An' he give to that same pris'ner
   Every blessed human grace,
 Tell I saw the light o' virtue
   Fairly shinin' from his face.
 Then I own 'at I was puzzled
   How sich things could rightly be;
 An' this aggervatin' question
   Seems to keep a-puzzlin' me.
 So, will some one please inform me,
   An' this mystery unroll--
 How an angel an' a devil
   Can persess the self-same soul?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

57 sec read
136

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCBDEFEFGCGCHCHIJFKFLMLNOCOOPPP
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,022
Words 184
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 32

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

All Paul Laurence Dunbar poems | Paul Laurence Dunbar Books

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