But that the more they give the better,
Is very well understood;
Seeing whatever is thus disposed of,
Is for their own souls' good;
For Santiago will always
Befriend his true believers;
And the money is for him, the Priests
Being only his receivers.
To make the miracle the more,
Of these feathers there is always store,
And all are genuine too;
All of the original Cock and Hen,
Which the Priests will swear is true.
Thousands a thousand times told have bought them,
And if myriads and tens of myriads sought them,
They would still find some to buy;
For however great were the demand,
So great would be the supply.
And if any of you, my small friends,
Should visit those parts, I dare say
You will bring away some of the feathers,
And think of old Robin Gray.
[Illustration with caption: BURNS]
THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS; OR, THE QUEST OF SULTAUN SOLIMAUN. SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Oh, for a glance of that gay Muse's eye,
That lighten'd on Bandello's laughing tale,
And twinkled with a luster shrewd and sly,
When Giam Batttista bade her vision hail!—
Yet fear not, ladies, the naive detail
Given by the natives of that land canorous;
Italian license loves to leap the pale,
We Britons have the fear of shame before us,
And, if not wise in mirth, at least must be decorous.
In the far eastern clime, no great while since,
Lived Sultaun Solimaun, a mighty prince,
Whose eyes, as oft as they perform'd their round,
Beheld all others fix'd upon the ground;
Whose ears received the same unvaried phrase,
"Sultaun! thy vassal hears, and he obeys!"
All have their tastes—this may the fancy strike
Of such grave folks as pomp and grandeur like;
For me, I love the honest heart and warm
Of monarch who can amble round his farm,
Or when the toil of state no more annoys,
In chimney corner seek domestic joys—
I love a prince will bid the bottle pass,
Exchanging with his subjects glance and glass;
In fitting time, can, gayest of the gay,
Keep up the jest, and mingle in the lay—
Such Monarchs best our free-born humors suit,
But Despots must be stately, stern, and mute.
This Solimaun, Serendib had in sway—
And where's Serendib? may some critic say—
Good lack, mine honest friend, consult the chart,
Scare not my Pegasus before I start!
If Rennell has it not, you'll find, mayhap,
The isle laid down in Captain Sinbad's map—
Famed mariner! whose merciless narrations
Drove every friend and kinsman out of patience,
Till, fain to find a guest who thought them shorter,
He deign'd to tell them over to a porter—
The last edition see, by Long and Co.,
Rees, Hurst, and Orme, our fathers in the Row.