XXVI
When men are drunk, they often babble things,
They scarce would whisper to a bosom-friend,
But when the wine has loosened sense and tongue,
The hidden secret to the crowd is flung,
And with an oath its owner will defend
A truth exaggerated, till the ring
Of brawlers doth declare it is a lie,
For which he ought to buy a round of drinks;
Thus in that tavern, on a foggy night,
A group was sitting in the candle-light,
Around a table, drinking, till their blinks
Did tell that Reason was about to fly.
And one, a bearded, lion-voiced sailor,
Began to tell of escapades at sea,—
Of war in foreign lands, of victory,
In such a loud and boasting way, that three
Out of the five did laugh derisively,
And said, he was a bandy-legged tailor.
At which he swore and drained his tankard dry,
And called them all a motley lubber-gang,
And rose to go, but then his friends cried “no,”
“You must not leave us yet, for dontcher know,
The best is coming? Say how did ye hang
Those tinklers in the tow’r?—Let’s have a rye!”
Sordino being witness to this scene,
Approached the table and said: “Gentlemen,
Allow me to provide a drink for all,”
A sentence which upon their ears did fall
With some surprise, since he a stranger; then
A grin of acceptation in their mien.
And he sat down with them, and freely drank,
And paid for all the drinks, the barmaid poured,
Thus made them almost feel, he was their host,
And when he ordered for their midnight lunch a roast,
They sang his praise; the grizzly sailor roared:
“Say, fellow, have you robbed the Venice bank?”
They revelled, and caroused, and stories told,
The most of which were tavern-coarse and smutty,—
The sailor being richest in his stores
Of drunken bouts and fights on foreign shores,
But as the chemist in the chimney-sut finds tutty,
Thus sought Sordino in this slag the gold.
For he had thought at first to see a glint
Of something in the “tinklers and the tower,”
And now he tried to draw the sailor out
On this allusion in his fellow’s flout;—
An instant’s hesitation and a lower,
And then the old tar understood the hint.
“The tinklers, aye, ha! ha! those merry bells,
We carried up from France to Limerick,—
And nearly lost in a confounded gale,—
Aye, aye, old top, by these there hangs a tale,—
I heard from one who wounded lay and sick,—
A soldier who had seen a hundred hells.”
“Those bells were taken in a bloody war
Sir,—what is that to thee?—another drink!”
Sordino forced a laugh, and ordered wine,—
A bottle of old port—none did decline,
But drank, until the weak began to wink,
And Silence made encroachment round the bar.
The sailor bibbed the longest, ate his roast,
And told Sordino, how the bells were sold
To a great churchman in the Irish isle,
That they are ringing daily from a pile
Most venerable, whence no price of gold
Can e’er return them to their native coast.
Sordino knew, they were his own, and smiled
To learn the place where strangely they had landed,
And when the sailor swore it all was true,
Sordino from the company withdrew,
But not before it was of him demanded,
That what he heard for ever must be “tiled.”