XX.

So he turn’d right and I turn’d left,
As if we had never met;
And I chose a fair stone house for myself,
For the city was all to let;
And for three brave holydays drank my fill
Of the choicest that I could get.

XXI.

And because my jerking was coarse and worn,
I got me a properer vest;
It was purple velvet, stitch’d o’er with gold,
And a shining star at the breast,—­
’Twas enough to fetch old Joan from her grave
To see me so purely drest!—­

XXII.

But Joan was dead and under the mould,
And every buxom lass;
In vain I watch’d, at the window pane,
For a Christian soul to pass;—­
But sheep and kine wander’d up the street,
And brows’d on the new-come grass.—­

XXIII.

When lo!  I spied the old beggar man,
And lustily he did sing!—­
His rags were lapp’d in a scarlet cloak,
And a crown he had like a King;
So he stept right up before my gate
And danc’d me a saucy fling!

XXIV.

Heaven mend us all!—­but, within my mind,
I had kill’d him then and there;
To see him lording so braggart-like
That was born to his beggar’s fare,
And how he had stolen the royal crown
His betters were meant to wear.

XXV.

But God forbid that a thief should die
Without his share of the laws! 
So I nimbly whipt my tackle out,
And soon tied up his claws,—­
I was judge, myself, and jury, and all,
And solemnly tried the cause.

XXVI.

But the beggar man would not plead, but cried
Like a babe without its corals,
For he knew how hard it is apt to go
When the law and a thief have quarrels,
There was not a Christian soul alive
To speak a word for his morals.

XXVII.

Oh, how gaily I doff’d my costly gear,
And put on my work-day clothes;—­
I was tired of such a long Sunday life,
And never was one of the sloths;
But the beggar man grumbled a weary deal,
And made many crooked mouths.

XXVIII.

So I haul’d him off to the gallows’ foot. 
And blinded him in his bags;
’Twas a weary job to heave him up,
For a doom’d man always lags;
But by ten of the clock he was off his legs
In the wind and airing his rags!

XXIX.

So there he hung, and there I stood
The LAST MAN left alive,
To have my own will of all the earth: 
Quoth I, now I shall thrive! 
But when was ever honey made
With one bee in a hive!