The following lines come from two dissents by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. I have rendered the lines in poetic form to suggest that Holmes’s writing is poetic, perhaps even inspired by Modern American poets such as William Carlos Williams.
Black & White Taxi & Transfer Co. v. Brown & Yellow Taxi & Transfer Co.[1]
A Poem[2] (1928)
It is very hard to resist the impression
that there is one august corpus
to understand which clearly is the only task
of any Court concerned.
If there were such a transcendental body of law
outside of any particular State
but obligatory within it unless and until changed by statute,
the Courts of the United States might be right in using
their independent judgment
as to what it was.
But there is no such body of law.
The fallacy and illusion that I think exist
consist in supposing that there is this outside thing to be found.
Law is a word used with different meanings,
but law in the sense in which courts speak of it today
does not exist
without some definite authority
behind it.
Gitlow v. New York[3]
A Poem[4] (1925)
Every idea
is an incitement.
It offers itself for belief
and if believed
it is acted on
unless some other belief
outweighs it
or some failure of energy
stifles the movement
at its birth.
The only difference
between the expression
of an opinion and an incitement
in the narrower sense
is the speaker’s enthusiasm
for the result.
Eloquence may set fire
to reason.
But whatever may be thought
of the redundant discourse
before us
it had no chance of starting
a present conflagration.
