“Sliding after like his shadow, pausing when he chose to pause,
     If a frown his face contracted, straight the courtiers dropped
          their jaws;
     If to laugh the King was minded, out they burst in loud hee-haws.

     “But that day a something vexed him, that was clear to old and
        young: 
     Thrice his Grace had yawned at table, when his favorite gleemen
        sung,
     Once the Queen would have consoled him, but he bade her hold her
        tongue.

     “‘Something ails my gracious master,’ cried the Keeper of the Seal. 
     ‘Sure, my lord, it is the lampreys served at dinner, or the veal?’
     ‘Psha!’ exclaimed the angry monarch.  ’Keeper, ’tis not that I
          feel.

     “’’Tis the heart, and not the dinner, fool, that doth my rest
          impair: 
     Can a King be great as I am, prithee, and yet know no care? 
     Oh, I’m sick, and tired, and weary.’—­Some one cried, ’The King’s
        arm-chair?’

     “Then towards the lackeys turning, quick my Lord the Keeper nodded,
     Straight the King’s great chair was brought him, by two footmen
        able-bodied;
     Languidly he sank into it:  it was comfortably wadded.

     “‘Leading on my fierce companions,’ cried be, ’over storm and
          brine,
     I have fought and I have conquered!  Where was glory like to mine?’
     Loudly all the courtiers echoed:  ‘Where is glory like to thine?’

     “’What avail me all my kingdoms?  Weary am I now, and old;
     Those fair sons I have begotten, long to see me dead and cold;
     Would I were, and quiet buried, underneath the silent mould!

“’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 of 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.’