"Oh, remorse, the writhing serpent! at my bosom tears and bites;

Horrid, horrid things I look on, though I put out all the lights;

Ghosts of ghastly recollections troop about my bed at nights.

"Cities burning, convents blazing, red with sacrilegious fires;

Mothers weeping, virgins screaming: vainly for their slaughtered sires."

"Such a tender conscience," cries the Bishop, "every one admires.

"But for such unpleasant bygones, cease, my gracious lord, to search,

They're forgotten and forgiven by our Holy Mother Church;

Never, never does she leave her benefactors in the lurch.

"Look! the land is crowned with minsters, which your Grace's bounty raised;

Abbeys filled with holy men, where you and Heaven are daily praised:

You, my lord, to think of dying? on my conscience I'm amazed!"

"Nay, I feel," replied King Canute, "that my end is drawing near."

Don't say so," exclaimed the courtiers (striving each to squeeze a tear).

"Sure your Grace is strong and lusty, and may live this

fifty year."

"Live these fifty years!" the bishop roared, with actions made to suit.

"Are you mad, my good Lord Keeper, thus to speak of King Canute!

Men have lived a thousand years, and sure his Majesty will do 't.

"Adam, Enoch, Lamech, Cainan, Mahaleel, Methusela, Lived nine hundred years apiece, and may n't the King as well as they?"

'Fervently," exclaimed the Keeper, "fervently I trust he may."

"He to die?" resumed the Bishop. "He a mortal like to us?

Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus:

Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus.

"With his wondrous skill in healing ne'er a doctor can compete,

Loathsome lepers, if he touch them, start up clean upon their feet;

Surely he could raise the dead up, did his Highness think it meet.

"Did not once the Jewish captain stay the sun upon the hill,

And, the while he slew the foemen, bid the silver moon stand still?

So, no doubt, could gracious Canute, if it were his sacred

will."

'Might I stay the sun above us, good Sir Bishop?" Canute cried;

"Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride?

If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can command the tide.

"Will the advancing waves obey me, Bishop, if I make the sign?"

Said the Bishop, bowing lowly, "Land and sea, my lord, are thine."

Canute turned towards the ocean "Back!" he said, "thou foaming brine.

"From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat;

Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master's

seat:

Ocean, be thou still! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet!"

But the sullen ocean answered with a louder, deeper roar, And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling sounding on the shore;

Back the Keeper and the Bishop, back the King and courtiers bore.

And he sternly bade them never more to kneel to human clay,

But alone to praise and worship That which earth and seas obey:

And his golden crown of empire never wore he from

that day.

King Canute is dead and gone: Parasites exist alway.

S

FRIAR'S SONG

OME love the matin-chimes, which tell
The hour of prayer to sinner:

But better far 's the mid-day bell,

Which speaks the hour of dinner;
For when I see a smoking fish,
Or capon drown'd in gravy,
Or noble haunch on silver dish,
Full glad I sing my ave.

My pulpit is an alehouse bench,
Whereon I sit so jolly;

A smiling rosy country wench
My saint and patron holy.
I kiss her cheek so red and sleek,
I press her ringlets wavy,
And in her willing ear I speak
A most religious ave.

And if I'm blind, yet heaven is kind,
And holy saints forgiving;

For sure he leads a right good life
Who thus admires good living.
Above, they say, our flesh is air,
Our blood celestial ichor:
Oh, grant! mid all the changes there.
They may not change our liquor!

B

ATRA CURA

EFORE I lost my five poor wits,

I mind me of a Romish clerk,

Who sang how Care, the phantom dark,

Beside the belted horseman sits.

Methought I saw the grisly sprite
Jump up but now behind my Knight.

And though he gallop as he may,
I mark that cursed monster black
Still sits behind his honour's back,
Tight squeezing of his heart alway.
Like two black Templars sit they there,
Beside one crupper, Knight and Care.

No knight am I with pennoned spear,
To prance upon a bold destrere:
I will not have black Care prevail
Upon my long-eared charger's tail,
For lo, I am a witless fool,

And laugh at Grief and ride a mule.