“Now crows the cock with feathers swart;
The gates of heaven fly wide apart.

“Now crows the cock with feathers white;
I can abide no longer to-night.”

Whenever they heard the watch-dogs wail,
They gave the children bread and ale.

Whenever they heard the watch-dogs bay,
They feared lest the dead were on their way.

Whenever they heard the watch-dogs bark;
     I myself was young! 
They feared the dead out there in the dark. 
     Fair words gladden so many a heart.

INTERLUDE

Touched by the pathos of these rhymes,
The Theologian said:  “All praise
Be to the ballads of old times
And to the bards of simple ways,
Who walked with Nature hand in hand,
Whose country was their Holy Land,
Whose singing robes were homespun brown
From looms of their own native town,
Which they were not ashamed to wear,
And not of silk or sendal gay,
Nor decked with fanciful array
Of cockle-shells from Outre-Mer.”

To whom the Student answered:  “Yes;
All praise and honor!  I confess
That bread and ale, home-baked, home-brewed,
Are wholesome and nutritious food,
But not enough for all our needs;
Poets—­the best of them—­are birds
Of passage; where their instinct leads
They range abroad for thoughts and words,
And from all climes bring home the seeds
That germinate in flowers or weeds. 
They are not fowls in barnyards born
To cackle o’er a grain of corn;
And, if you shut the horizon down
To the small limits of their town,
What do you but degrade your bard
Till he at last becomes as one
Who thinks the all-encircling sun
Rises and sets in his back yard?”

The Theologian said again: 
“It may be so; yet I maintain
That what is native still is best,
And little care I for the rest. 
’T is a long story; time would fail
To tell it, and the hour is late;
We will not waste it in debate,
But listen to our Landlord’s tale.”

And thus the sword of Damocles
Descending not by slow degrees,
But suddenly, on the Landlord fell,
Who blushing, and with much demur
And many vain apologies,
Plucking up heart, began to tell
The Rhyme of one Sir Christopher.

THE LANDLORD’S TALE

THE RHYME OF SIR CHRISTOPHER

It was Sir Christopher Gardiner,
Knight of the Holy Sepulchre,
From Merry England over the sea,
Who stepped upon this continent
As if his august presence lent
A glory to the colony.

You should have seen him in the street
Of the little Boston of Winthrop’s time,
His rapier dangling at his feet
Doublet and hose and boots complete,
Prince Rupert hat with ostrich plume,
Gloves that exhaled a faint perfume,
Luxuriant curls and air sublime,
And superior manners now obsolete!