To whom the Student answered: "Yes; All praise and honor! I confess That bread and ale, home-baked, home-brewed, 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, 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 To the small limits of their town, What do you but degrade your bard Till he at last becomes as one Who thinks the all-encircling sun Rises and sets in his back yard?"
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 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, 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.
THE LANDLORD'S TALE
THE RHYME OF SIR CHRISTOPHER
It was Sir Christopher Gardiner, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, From Merry England over the sea, Who stepped upon this continent As if his august presence lent A glory to the colony.
You should have seen him in the street Of the little Boston of Winthrop's time, His rapier dangling at his feet Doublet and hose and boots complete, Prince Rupert hat with ostrich plume, Gloves that exhaled a faint perfume, Luxuriant curls and air sublime, And superior manners now obsolete!
He had a way of saying things That made one think of courts and kings, And lords and ladies of high degree; So that not having been at court Seemed something very little short Of treason or lese-majesty, Such an accomplished knight was he.
His dwelling was just beyond the town, At what he called his country-seat; For, careless of Fortune's smile or frown, And weary grown of the world and its ways, He wished to pass the rest of his days In a private life and a calm retreat.
But a double life was the life he led, And, while professing to be in search Of a godly course, and willing, he said, Nay, anxious to join the Puritan church, He made of all this but small account, And passed his idle hours instead With roystering Morton of Merry Mount, That pettifogger from Furnival's Inn, Lord of misrule and riot and sin, Who looked on the wine when it was red.