"If I come again unto your hall, As cruel a fate shall you befall!
"Now crows the cock with feathers red; Back to the earth must all the dead.
"Now crows the cock with feathers swart; The gates of heaven fly wide apart.
"Now crows the cock with feathers white; I can abide no longer to-night."
Whenever they heard the watch-dogs wail, They gave the children bread and ale.
Whenever they heard the watch-dogs bay, They feared lest the dead were on their way.
Whenever they heard the watch-dogs bark;
I myself was young!
They feared the dead out there in the dark.
Fair words gladden so many a heart.
INTERLUDE
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, 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, Nor decked with fanciful array Of cockle-shells from Outre-Mer."