Whacketty-whack on breast and back,
Whacketty-whack from morn to noon;
Whacketty-whacketty-whacketty-whack!—
Till the abbey rang with the dismal tune.
Deacon and prior, lay-brother and friar
Exclaimed at these whoppings spectacular;
And even the Abbot remarked that the habit
Of scourging oneself might be carried too far.
“My son,” said he, “I am pleased to see
Such penance as never was known before;
But you raise such a racket in dusting your jacket,
The noise is becoming a bit of a bore.
“How would it do if you whaled yourself
From eight to ten or from one to three?
Or if ‘More’ is your motto, pray hire a grotto;
I know of one you can have rent free.”
Ambrose the anchorite bowed his head,
And girded his loins and went away.
He rented a cavern not far from a tavern,
And tippled by night and scourged by day.
The more the penance the more the sin,
The more he whopped him the more he drank;
Till his hair fell out and his cheeks fell in,
And his corpulent figure grew long and lank.
At Whitsuntide he up and died,
While flaying himself for his final spree.
And who shall say whether ’twas liquor or leather
That hurried him into eternity?
They made him a saint, as well they might,
And gave him a beautiful aureole.
And—somehow or other, this circle of light
Suggests the rim of the Flowing Bowl.