# The Happy Marriage and Other Poems/The Lord Chancellor Prepares His Opinion

THE LORD CHANCELLOR PREPARES HIS OPINION
My Lords, this is a clear unmuddied case—
A clear unmuddied case! If ever stream Of pure judicial reasoning bore down More silt and wreckage of the heart's unease Than this thin rill! But let the sarcasm stand; It serves at least to thrust me on the cause Full running, in a careless jogging start, Ahead of fox and beagles, horn uplift, Toot-tootling at full breath, as one who knows Before the hunt's up where the brush will fall.
My Lords, this is a clear unmuddied case. The plaintiff is a lady of the Court,
A maid of honor to Her Majesty and known By beauty's rumor far as Tyne and Tweed.
By beauty's rumor—there I've found myself With just the breath of satire; not one tone Of all the tones her beauty struck in me, Leaving me jangling like a belfry bell Under a thrust of thunder.
She impleads The courts of equity to have relief Against defendant, in that he has made A full heroic picture of herself, Likest Diana, with the curved moon's arc Crowning her head, and in her hand a spear; No adjective beside to qualify The fact of her—
Ah, there's another touch To throw them off the scent. They'll nudge and say, My lord is mellow: they will never dream How that still beauty on the canvas caught, Caught and held fast, as in the brain sometimes A gesture of the soul is caught and held,— How that still beauty stopped my mouth with awe, And left my poor brain gaping. Like a tree, A birch tree, shining in a windy place Where blown and shattered leaves of sunlight fall, And grasses ripple and the flooding blue Seems to engulf the world; or like a wave That tips with foam and flowering in the sea Drives on before the wind, a curve of sound
And failing flame of water, such intents This phrase of mine obscures:
No adjective Beside to qualify the fact of her. The paint once dried, defendant made demand For sums, excess of reason, which, refused, The painter had his shameless painting set Within the windows of a coffee house, That all who paid might see and all who saw, Knowing her face,—it was a replica Most exquisite exact, her counsel saith,— Might stand and stare. To this so-stated bill Defendant has demurred.
So stands the cause. My Lords, here is no ground for equity. It is established from the earliest days
That save a man be injured in his purse, Or in his lands, or in his common right, He may not plead the Chancellor for aid. And here what right is injured? Are there fees And rents and profits in a replica? Is beauty such a thing as this grave court, Accustomed to the solid weight of trade, Apt to divide with cold appraising eye The estates of merchants, and maintain the scales Against the shrewd in barter, long enured To holding lands and livings in its trusts— Is beauty such a value as we know? Shall we weigh symmetry in sterling's worth? Shall equity protect a woman's throat Against the painter's interest in his paint? The bill should be dismissed.
Ah, that's well done, That's very well. I see them nod and bow And echo what I've said; I see—I see— Nay, nothing but a beauty such as time In all its ebb and flow against this earth Has never yet tossed, like a tinted shell, High on the echoing beaches that look out Toward the faint lights of the voyaging stars.