Blog 1: Stanza of Housman

I am writing about Clarence Darrow, a very controversial lawyer, arguing a case for Leopold and Loeb. During one part of his speech, A Plea for Mercy, Darrow recites a stanza from the poem of Alfred Edward Housman. This stanza goes as follows,

Now hollow fires burn out to black,

And lights are fluttering low:

Square your shoulders, lift your pack

And leave your friends and go.

O never fear, lads, naught’s to dread,

Look not left nor right:

In all the endless road you tread

There’s nothing but the night.

 This is a very important trace for the speech because Darrow loves to recite poems and he loves to play the judge. He does it many times in his speech, this is merely just one important one. The importance of this poem in the speech is more than meets the eye. Before beginning the poem, Darrow talks about how these wealthy boys have nothing to look forward to in their lives. Their lives are over. Prison is hardly anything to look forward to. Darrow says that killing them today is actually more merciful to them than sending them to prison. "merciful to them, but not merciful to civilization, and not merciful to those who would be left behind." He then says that when these boys, 18 and 19 yrs old, reach the next stage of their lives, they will however be just people. Right before the poem, Darrow says " I would be the last person on earth to close the door of hope to any human being that lives, and least of all to my clients. But what have they to look forward to? Nothing." Darrow is a master of playing peoples emotions, and he perfectly does this in numerous ways throughout his speech. After doing some research, I actually found out that the judge actually had teardrops coming down his face after certain parts of Darrow's speech.