"Arede me aright the most wonderful sight, Grey Palmer, that ever thine eyes did see, And a manchette of bread, and a good warm bed, And a cup o' the best shall thy guerdon be!" "Oh! I have been east, and I have been west, And I have seen many a wonderful sight; But never to me did it happen to see A wonder like that which I see this night! "To see a Lord Abbot, in rochet and stole, With Prior and Friar,--a strange mar-velle!-- O'er a jolly full bowl, sitting cheek by jowl, And hob-nobbing away with a Devil from Hell!" He felt in his gown of ginger-brown, And he pull'd out a flask from beneath; It was rather tough work to get out the cork, But he drew it at last with his teeth. O'er a pint and a quarter of holy water He made the sacred sign; And he dash'd the whole on the _soi-disant_ daughter Of old Plantagenet's line! Oh! then did she reek, and squeak, and shriek, With a wild unearthly scream; And fizzl'd, and hiss'd, and produced such a mist, They were all half-choked by the steam. Her dove-like eyes turn'd to coals of fire, Her beautiful nose to a horrible snout, Her hands to paws, with nasty great claws, And her bosom went in, and her tail came out. On her chin there appear'd a long Nanny-goat's beard, And her tusks and her teeth no man mote tell; And her horns and her hoofs gave infallible proofs 'Twas a frightful Fiend from the nethermost Hell! The Palmer threw down his ginger gown, His hat and his cockle; and, plain to sight, Stood St. Nicholas' self, and his shaven crown Had a glow-worm halo of heavenly light. The Fiend made a grasp, the Abbot to clasp; But St. Nicholas lifted his holy toe, And, just in the nick, let fly such a kick On his elderly Namesake, he made him let go. And out of the window he flew like a shot, For the foot flew up with a terrible thwack, And caught the foul demon about the spot Where his tail joins on to the small of his back. And he bounded away, like a foot-ball at play, Till into the bottomless pit he fell slap, Knocking Mammon the meagre o'er pursy Belphegor, And Lucifer into Beëlzebub's lap. Oh! happy the slip from his Succubine grip, That saved the Lord Abbot,--though, breathless with fright, In escaping he tumbled, and fractured his hip, And his left leg was shorter thenceforth than his right! * * * * * On the banks of the Rhine, as he's stopping to dine, From a certain Inn-window the traveller is shown Most picturesque ruins, the scene of these doings, Some miles up the river, south-east of Cologne. [Illustration: A LAY OF ST. NICHOLAS.] And, while "_sour-kraut_" she sells you, the Landlady tells you That there, in those walls, now all roofless and bare, One Simon, a Deacon, from a lean grew a sleek one, On filling a _ci-devant_ Abbot's state chair.