Page:The poems of John Godfrey Saxe.djvu/281

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So, oft in theologic wars
 * The disputants, I ween,

Rail on in utter ignorance
 * Of what each other mean,

And prate about an Elephant
 * Not one of them has seen!

BEAUTIFUL story, my darlings,
 * Though exceedingly quaint and old,

Is a tale I have read in Italian,
 * Entitled, The Treasure of Gold.

There lived near the town of Bologna
 * A widow of virtuous fame,

Alone with her only daughter,—
 * Madonna by name.

A lady whom changing fortune
 * Had numbered among the poor;

And she kept an inn by the wayside,
 * For the use of peasant and boor.

One day at the door of the tavern
 * Three roving banditti appeared,

And one was a wily Venetian,
 * To guess by his curious beard.