8.
To Butterby often he’d stray,
And sometimes look in at the well, sir;
And if you’ll attend to the lay,
How it came by its virtues I’ll tell, sir:
One morning, as wont, the saint call’d,
And being tremendously faint then,
He drank of the stuff till he stall’d,
And out spake the reverend saint then,
My blessing be on thee for aye!
9.
Thus saying he bent his way home,
Now mark the event which has follow’d,
The fount has from that time become
A cure for sick folks—for its hallow’d:
And many a pilgrim goes there
From many a far distant part, sir,
And, piously uttering a prayer,
Blesses the saint’s pious heart, sir,
That gave to the fount so much grace.
10.
At Finchale his saintship did dwell,
Till the devil got into the cloister,
And left the bare walls as a shell,
And gulp’d the fat monks like an oyster.
So the saint was enforced to quit,
But swore he’d the fell legions all amuse,
And pay back their coin every whit,
Tho’ his hide should be flay’d like Bartholemew’s,
And red as Saint Dunstan’s red nose.
11.
Another church straight he erected,
Which for its sanctity fam’d much is,
Where sinners and saints are protected,
And kept out of Belzebub’s clutches:
And thus in the eve of his days
He still paternosters and aves sung,
His lungs were worn threadbare with praise,
Till death, who slays priors, rest gave his tongue
And sent him to sing in the spheres!
12.
It would be too long to tell here
Of how, when or where, the monks buried him.
Suffice it to say, it seems clear
That somewhere or other they carried him.
His odd life by death was made even,
He popp’d off on one of Lent Sundays,
His corpse was to miracles given,
And his choristers sung “De profundis
Clamavi ad te Domine!”