| |
| TOUCHED by the pathos of these rhymes, | |
| The Theologian said: “All praise | |
| Be to the ballads of old times | |
| And to the bards of simple ways, | |
| Who walked with Nature hand in hand, | 5 |
| Whose country was their Holy Land, | |
| Whose singing robes were homespun brown | |
| From looms of their own native town, | |
| Which they were not ashamed to wear, | |
| And not of silk or sendal gay, | 10 |
| Nor decked with fanciful array | |
| Of cockle-shells from Outre-Mer.” | |
| |
| To whom the Student answered; “Yes; | |
| All praise and honor! I confess | |
| That bread and ale, home-baked, home-brewed, | 15 |
| Are wholesome and nutritious food, | |
| But not enough for all our needs; | |
| Poets—the best of them—are birds | |
| Of passage; where their instinct leads | |
| They range abroad for thoughts and words, | 20 |
| And from all climes bring home the seeds | |
| That germinate in flowers or weeds. | |
| They are not fowls in barnyards born | |
| To cackle o’er a grain of corn; | |
| And, if you shut the horizon down | 25 |
| To the small limits of their town, | |
| What do you do but degrade your bard | |
| Till he at last becomes as one | |
| Who thinks the all-encircling sun | |
| Rises and sets in his back yard?” | 30 |
| |
| The Theologian said again: | |
| “It may be so; yet I maintain | |
| That what is native still is best, | |
| And little care I for the rest. | |
| ’T is a long story; time would fail | 35 |
| To tell it, and the hour is late; | |
| We will not waste it in debate, | |
| But listen to our Landlord’s tale.” | |
| |
| And thus the sword of Damocles | |
| Descending not by slow degrees, | 40 |
| But suddenly, on the Landlord fell, | |
| Who blushing, and with much demur | |
| And many vain apologies, | |
| Plucking up heart, began to tell | |
| The Rhyme of one Sir Christopher. | 45 |
| |
