All alone, by the side of the pool, A tall man sat on a three-legged stool, Kicking his heels on the dewy sod, And putting in order his reel and rod; Red were the rags his shoulders wore, And a high red cap on his head he bore; His arms and his legs were long and bare; And two or three locks of long red hair Were tossing about his scraggy neck, Like a tattered flag o'er a splitting wreck. It might be time, or it might be trouble, Had bent that stout back nearly double, Sunk in their deep and hollow sockets That blazing couple of Congreve rockets, And shrunk and shrivelled that tawny skin, Till it hardly covered the bones within. The line the Abbot saw him throw Had been fashioned and formed long ages ago, And the hands that worked his foreign vest Long ages ago had gone to their rest: You would have sworn, as you looked on them, He had fished in the flood with Ham and Shem! There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, As he took forth a bait from his iron box. Minnow or gentle, worm or fly,-- It seemed not such to the Abbot's eye; Gaily it glittered with jewel and jem, And its shape was the shape of a diadem. It was fastened a gleaming hook about By a chain within and a chain without; The Fisherman gave it a kick and a spin, And the water fizzed as it tumbled in! From the bowels of the earth, Strange and varied sounds had birth; Now the battle's bursting peal, Neigh of steed, and clang of steel; Now an old man's hollow groan Echoed from the dungeon stone; Now the weak and wailing cry Of a stripling's agony!-- Cold by this was the midnight air; But the Abbot's blood ran colder, When he saw a gasping knight lie there, With a gash beneath his clotted hair, And a hump upon his shoulder. And the loyal churchman strove in vain To mutter a Pater Noster; For he who writhed in mortal pain Was camped that night on Bosworth plain-- The cruel Duke of Glo'ster! There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, As he took forth a bait from his iron box. It was a haunch of princely size, Filling with fragrance earth and skies. The corpulent Abbot knew full well The swelling form, and the steaming smell; Never a monk that wore a hood Could better have guessed the very wood Where the noble hart had stood at bay, Weary and wounded, at close of day.