State's Attorney Fallas by Edgar Lee Masters

I, the scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker, / Smiter with whips and swords;

I, hater of the breakers of the law;

I, legalist, inexorable and bitter, / Driving the jury to hang the madman, Barry Holden, / Was made as one dead by light too bright for eyes, / And woke to face a Truth with bloody brow:

Steel forceps fumbled by a doctor's hand / Against my boy's head as he entered life / Made him an idiot.

I turned to books of science / To care for him.

That's how the world of those whose minds are sick / Became my work in life, and all my world.

Poor ruined boy! You were, at last, the potter / And I and all my deeds of charity / The vessels of your hand.