“If thou canst restore me my dearly loved son,
I’ll trust in thy Maker, and no other one.
“If I again view him, with flesh and hair dight,
As he fifteen years since disappeared from my sight;
“If I get him again both with hawk and with hound,
Just, just as he sank in the depths of the sound;
“With hair on his head, and with flesh on his bone,
As though he the pang of death never had known.”
Then the blessed Saint Jacob upon his book pored:
“’Twill be no easy matter to get him restored.”
When he had stood reading a wee little time,
He raised up the man from hell’s sorrowful clime.
“Now again thou hast got him with flesh and hair dight,
As he fifteen years since disappeared from thy sight.
“Thou hast got him again, both with hawk and with hound,
Just, just as he sank in the ocean profound.
“With hair on his head, and with flesh on his bone,
As though he the pang of death never had known.”
“Now hear thou, my dear son, so fine and so fair,
What news from thy journey afar dost thou bear?”