Never touching the cates, or the dishes or plates, The decanters or glasses, the sweetmeats or fruits, The head smiles, and begs them to bring him his legs, As a well-spoken gentleman asks for his boots.
Kicking open the casement, to each one's amazement, Straight a right leg steps in, all impediment scorns, And near the head stopping, a left follows hopping Behind,—for the left leg was troubled with corns.
Next, before the beholders, two great brawny shoulders, And arms on their bent elbows dance through the throng, While two hands assist, though nipp'd off at the wrist, The said shoulders in bearing a body along.
They march up to the head, not one syllable said, For the thirty guests all stare in wonder and doubt, As the limbs in their sight arrange and unite, Till Gengulphus, though dead, looks as sound as a trout.
I will venture to say, from that hour to this day, Ne'er did such an assembly behold such a scene; Or a table divide fifteen guests of a side With a dead body placed in the centre between.
Yes, they stared—well they might at so novel a sight: No one utter'd whisper, a sneeze, or a hem, But sat all bolt upright, and pale with affright; And they gazed at the dead man, the dead man at them.
The Prince Bishop's Jester, on punning intent, As he view'd the whole thirty, in jocular terms Said, "They put him in mind of a Council of Trente Engaged in reviewing the Diet of Worms."
But what should they do?—Oh! nobody knew What was best to be done, either stranger or resident; The Chancellor's self read his Puffendorf through In vain, for his books could not furnish a precedent.
The Prince Bishop mutter'd a curse, and a prayer, Which his double capacity hit to a nicety: His Princely, or Lay, half induced him to swear, His Episcopal moiety said "Benedicite!"
The Coroner sat on the body that night, And the jury agreed,—not a doubt could they harbour,— "That the chin of the corpse—the sole thing brought to light— Had been recently shaved by a very bad barber."