Who in this worlde
Did reygne three
Score yeares and seven
And yet lived not one?’”
“The three centre lines of his epitaph, indeed, bear a curious likeness to some of the inscriptions on the sarcophagus; perhaps the wise man who composed the epitaph may have seen your old monk’s book, or heard its moralities in many an old pulpit exhortation in his early days,” said Thompson.
“Coincidences are oftentimes just as remarkable as plagiarisms,” said Herbert. “But come, Sir Tale-teller, What entertainment have you for us this evening?”
“A little poetry, not of my own, but so closely resembling the old tale of the Gesta, that I prefer this poetic version, of The Lay of the Little Bird, to my own stiff prose.”
THE LAY OF THE LITTLE BIRD.
“In days of yore, at least a century since,
There liv’d a carle as wealthy as a prince: