And count fair prize what comes into their net? Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends. With the pike and lantern,—for the slave that holds With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say) 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands To roam the town and sing out carnival, And I've been three weeks shut within my mew, There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song,-- Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! I let Lisa go, and what good in life since? Flower o' the thyme-and so on. Round they went. Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,-three slim shapes, And a face that looked up zooks, sir, flesh and blood, That's all I'm made of! Into shreds it went, Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, All the bed-furniture—a dozen knots, Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, And after them. I came up with the fun Hard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, well met,— Flower o' the rose, If I've been merry, what matter who knows? And so, as I was stealing back again, To get to bed and have a bit of sleep On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see! Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head--- Mum 's the word naturally; but a monk! I was a baby when my mother died And father died and left me in the street. I starved there, God knows how, a year or two, My stomach being empty as your hat, The wind doubled me up and down I went. Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, (Its fellow was a stinger, as I knew) And so along the wall, over the bridge, By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, 66 So, boy, you 're minded," quoth the good fat father Wiping his own mouth, 't was refection-time, "To quit this very miserable world? "Will you renounce thought I; "the mouthful of bread ?" By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me; And day-long blessed idleness beside! all round, "Let's see what the urchin 's fit for "-that came next. Not overmuch their way, I must confess. Such a to-do! They tried me with their books: Lord, they 'd have taught me Latin in pure waste! All the Latin I construe is, "Amo" I love! Holding a candle to the Sacrament, Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped,- I had a store of such remarks, be sure, On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black. "Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d' ye say? "In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. "What if at last we get our man of parts, "We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese "And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine "And put the front on it that ought to be !" And hereupon he bade me daub away. Thank you! my head being crammed, the walls a blank Never was such prompt disemburdening. First every sort of monk, the black and white, I drew them, fat and lean: then, folks at church, From good old gossips waiting to confess To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot, Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked ; The Prior and the learned pulled a face And stopped all that in no time. "How? what's here? 66 66 Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all! Faces, arms, legs and bodies like the true "As much as pea and pea! it 's devil's game! "Your business is not to catch men with show, "With homage to the perishable clay, |