Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/123

 And thus it happened that hard drinking

Became the rage in northern valleys

Where heretofore cool sober thinking

Had put a rein upon the chalice:

When two sous sees you half-seas over,

Philosophy bids reap your clover.

Thus many a half-fed, half-clad blackguard

Would shut this sorry world’s dim woes out

And glorious home at even staggered

With ill-botched boots in holes, and toes out,

As Japhet now, his hose unmended,

In spirals down the bare street wended,

But not so drunk as not to seize

The salient points of the position:

His fellow townsmen, if they please,

May suffocate the Calvin mission:

Be all Geneva purged with fire!

But not his household gods the pyre.

One way alone he saw to save ’em

Blocked out among the common herd:—

To warn the Capuchins—and brave ’em—

Dread thought!—a slender chance, he feared.

Yet who can tell which scale of fate

Prevail shall, avarice or hate?

So sobered now, with heel to shoulder,

He clattered down the cobbly causeway

To where the Capucini moulder

Behind their rusty bars where bore sway

Huge spinners slung on hammocks clothy

Of dusty felts and colours brothy,

And, happily, he found it open—

That convent door with huge nails studded,