Pike County Ballads | Page 8

ate and drank with a kingly zest,
And peacefully snored
at night.
But he said he was sick, and a king should know,
And doctors came
by the score.
They did not cure him. He cut off their heads
And sent
to the schools for more.
At last two famous doctors came,
And one was as poor as a rat, -

He had passed his life in studious toil,
And never found time to grow
fat.
The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no
trouble -
If they recovered they paid him well,
If they died their
heirs paid double.
Together they looked at the royal tongue,
As the King on his couch
reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace
of disease could find.
The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
"Hang him up!" roared
the King in a gale, -
In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
The other
leech grew a shade pale;

But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription
ran, -
The King will be well, if he sleeps one night
In the Shirt of a
Happy Man.
Fytte the Second: tells of the search for the Shirt, and how it was nigh
found, but was not, for reasons which are said or sung.
Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
And fast their horses ran,

And many they saw, and to many they spoke,
But they found no
Happy Man.
They found poor men who would fain be rich
And rich who thought
they were poor;
And men who twisted their waists in stays,
And
women that shorthose wore.
They saw two men by the roadside sit,
And both bemoaned their lot;

For one had buried his wife, he said,
And the other one had not.
At last they came to a village gate,
A beggar lay whistling there;
He
whistled and sang and laughed and rolled
On the grass in the soft
June air.
The weary couriers paused and looked
At the scamp so blithe and gay;

And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend!
You seem to be
happy to-day."
"O yes, fair sirs!" the rascal laughed,
And his voice rang free and glad,

"An idle man has so much to do
That he never has time to be sad."
"This is our man," the courier said
"Our luck has led us aright.
I
will give you a hundred ducats, friend,
For the loan of your shirt
to-night."
The merry blackguard lay back on the grass,
And laughed till his face
was black;
"I would do it, God wot," and he roared with the fun,

"But I haven't a shirt to my back."

Fytte the Third: shewing how His Majesty the King came at last to
sleep in a Happy Man his Shirt.
Each day to the King the reports came in
Of his unsuccessful spies,

And the sad panorama of human woes
Passed daily under his eyes.
And he grew ashamed of his useless life,
And his maladies hatched in
gloom;
He opened his windows and let the air
Of the free heaven
into his room.
And out he went in the world and toiled
In his own appointed way;

And the people blessed him, the land was glad,
And the King was
well and gay.
A WOMAN'S LOVE.
A sentinel angel sitting high in glory
Heard this shrill wail ring out
from Purgatory:
"Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!
"I loved,--and, blind with passionate love, I fell.
Love brought me
down to death, and death to Hell.
For God is just, and death for sin is
well.
"I do not rage against His high decree,
Nor for myself do ask that
grace shall be;
But for my love on earth who mourns for me.
"Great Spirit! let me see my love again
And comfort him one hour,
and I were fain
To pay a thousand years of fire and pain."
Then said the pitying angel, "Nay, repent
That wild vow! Look, the
dial-finger's bent
Down to the last hour of thy punishment!"
But still she wailed, "I pray thee, let me go!
I cannot rise to peace and
leave him so.
Oh, let me soothe him in his bitter woe!"
The brazen gates ground sullenly ajar,
And upward, joyous, like a

rising star,
She rose and vanished in the ether far.
But soon adown the dying sunset sailing,
And like a wounded bird
her pinions trailing,
She fluttered back, with broken-hearted wailing.
She sobbed, "I found him by the summer sea
Reclined, his head upon
a maiden's knee, -
She curled his hair and kissed him. Woe is me!"
She wept, "Now let my punishment begin!
I have been fond and
foolish. Let me in
To expiate my sorrow and my sin."
The angel answered, "Nay, sad soul, go higher!
To be deceived in
your true heart's desire
Was bitterer than a thousand years of fire!"
ON PITZ LANGUARD.
I stood on the top of Pitz Languard,
And heard three voices
whispering low,
Where the Alpine birds in their circling ward
Made
swift dark shadows upon the snow.
First Voice.
I loved a girl with truth and pain,
She loved me not. When she said