4.
“’Note well her smile!—–it
edged the blade
Which fifty wives to widows made,
When, vain his strength and Mahound’s spell,
Iconium’s turban’d Soldan fell.
Seest thou her locks, whose sunny glow
Half shows, half shades, her neck of snow?
Twines not of them one golden thread,
But for its sake a Paynim bled.’
5.
“Joy to the fair!—–my name
unknown,
Each deed, and all its praise thine own
Then, oh! unbar this churlish gate,
The night dew falls, the hour is late.
Inured to Syria’s glowing breath,
I feel the north breeze chill as death;
Let grateful love quell maiden shame,
And grant him bliss who brings thee fame.”
During this performance, the hermit demeaned himself
much like a first-rate critic of the present day at
a new opera. He reclined back upon his seat,
with his eyes half shut; now, folding his hands and
twisting his thumbs, he seemed absorbed in attention,
and anon, balancing his expanded palms, he gently flourished
them in time to the music. At one or two favourite
cadences, he threw in a little assistance of his own,
where the knight’s voice seemed unable to carry
the air so high as his worshipful taste approved.
When the song was ended, the anchorite emphatically
declared it a good one, and well sung.
“And yet,” said he, “I think my
Saxon countrymen had herded long enough with the Normans,
to fall into the tone of their melancholy ditties.
What took the honest knight from home? or what could
he expect but to find his mistress agreeably engaged
with a rival on his return, and his serenade, as they
call it, as little regarded as the caterwauling of
a cat in the gutter? Nevertheless, Sir Knight,
I drink this cup to thee, to the success of all true
lovers—–I fear you are none,”
he added, on observing that the knight (whose brain
began to be heated with these repeated draughts) qualified
his flagon from the water pitcher.
“Why,” said the knight, “did you
not tell me that this water was from the well of your
blessed patron, St Dunstan?”
“Ay, truly,” said the hermit, “and
many a hundred of pagans did he baptize there, but
I never heard that he drank any of it. Every
thing should be put to its proper use in this world.
St Dunstan knew, as well as any one, the prerogatives
of a jovial friar.”
And so saying, he reached the harp, and entertained
his guest with the following characteristic song,
to a sort of derry-down chorus, appropriate to an
old English ditty.*
* It may be proper to remind the reader, that the
chorus of * “derry down” is supposed to
be as ancient, not only as * the times of the Heptarchy,
but as those of the Druids, * and to have furnished
the chorus to the hymns of those * venerable persons
when they went to the wood to gather * mistletoe.
1.
I’ll give thee, good fellow, a twelvemonth or
twain,
To search Europe through, from Byzantium to Spain;
But ne’er shall you find, should you search
till you tire,
So happy a man as the Barefooted Friar.
