Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Animal Behaviour, Cruelty, Human Development, Analogy

Institutions mentioned:

Army

    A response to the trial of Col. Crawley, who was charged with cruelty towards Sgt.-Maj. John Lilley—behaviour which allegedly led to the death of the latter. This poem likens Crawley to a snake that provokes feelings of disgust. He is represented as 'some slow, slimy, cold, creeping thing, / Big with venom, to wrath slowly wrought', and an 'adder coiled under the stone' with a 'wriggling circuitous coil'. It warns of Crawley's 'quick double tongue in its head, / The gleam of its cold cruel eye, / The foul fetid slave o' spread / The victim 'twill crush by-and-by'.