THE ENCHANTED SHIRT
BY JOHN HAY
The king was sick. His cheek was red,
And his eye was clear and bright;
He ate and drank with a kingly zest,
And peacefully snored at night.
But he said he was sick—and a king should know;
And doctors came by the score;
They did not cure him. He cut off their heads,
And sent to the schools for more.
At last two famous doctors came,
And one was as poor as a rat;
He had passed his life in studious toil
And never found time to grow fat.
The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no trouble;
If they recovered, they paid him well,
If they died, their heirs paid double.
Together they looked at the royal tongue,
As the king on his couch reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace of disease could find.
The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
"Hang him up!" roared the king, in a gale,—
In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
The other leach grew a shade pale;
But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription ran:
"The king will be well if he sleeps one night
In the shirt of a happy man."
Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
And fast their horses ran,
And many they saw, and to many they spake,
But they found no happy man.
They saw two men by the roadside sit,
And both bemoaned their lot;
For one had buried his wife, he said.
And the other one had not.