He strove all he could, but alas! could not thrive,
Nor hardly could keep his poor children alive.
But children came faster than silver or gold,
For his wife she conceived again, we are told,
And when her time came, in hard travail she fell;
But, if you will mind, a strange wonder I'll tell.
A rich noble knight did chance to ride by,
And hearing this woman to shriek and cry;
He being well learned in planets and signs,
Did look on a book which puzzled his mind: