6 DECEMBER 1924, Page 14

POETRY

BETRAYED THE Question came : " Not guilty ! " I replied, And would have pleaded Cause and Circumstance : But I was silenced by a voice that cried :

" Forgive my client this irrelevance Aghast, I turned to hear my Advocate, One Conscience, whom I'd flouted, now admit My guilt complete. Contempt turning to hate,

I waited while he made clean breast of it—

And then I shook my shackles at the sky : " You who in Judgment sit ! " I cried in scorn, " You frame the Law, and every Cause You try,

And even paltry Conscience You suborn f 19 My words trailed out as the Judge looked at me : Too well I knew whose was the treachery.

KENNETH ASHLEY.