Page:The Ingoldsby Legends (Frowde, 1905).pdf/198

 His left shows the door, and he seems to say, 'Sir King,

Your most faithful Commons won't hear of your shirking |

Quit your tea, and return to your Barelai and Perkyn.

Or, by Jingo, ere morning, no longer alive, a

Sad victim you'll lie to your love for Elgiva!'

No farther to treat

Of this ungallant feat,

What I mean to do now is succinctly to paint

One particular fact in the life of the Saint,

Which somehow, for want of due care, I presume,

Has escaped the researches of Rapin and Hume,

In recounting a miracle, both of them men, who a

Great deal fall short of Jacques, Bishop of Genoa,

An Historian who likes deeds like these to record-

See his Aurea Legenda, by ynkyn de orde.



St. Dunstan stood again in his tower,

Alembic, crucible, all complete;

He had been standing a good half-hour,

And now he utter'd the words of power,

And call'd to his Broomstick to bring him a seat.

The words of power!-and what be they

To which c'en Broomsticks bow and obey?-

Why, 'twere uncommonly hard to say,

As the prelate I named has recorded none of them,