Won golden opinions, by looking more bilious, From all who conceived strict monastical duty By no means conducive to personal beauty; And being more meagre, and thinner, and paler, He was snapt up at once by the bandy-legg'd Tailor. The latter's concern For a speedy return Scarce left the Monk time to put on stouter sandals, Or go round to his shrines, and snuff all his Saint's candles; Still less had he leisure to change the hair-shirt he Had worn the last twenty years--probably thirty,-- Which, not being wash'd all that time, had grown dirty. --It seems there's a sin in The wearing clean linen, Which Friars must eschew at the very beginning, Though it makes them look frowsy, and drowsy, and blowsy, And--a rhyme modern etiquette never allows ye.-- As for the rest, E'en if time had not prest, It didn't much matter how Basil was drest, Nor could there be any great need for adorning, The Night being almost at odds with the Morning. Oh! sweet and beautiful is Night, when the silver Moon is high, And countless Stars, like clustering gems, hang sparkling in the sky, While the balmy breath of the summer breeze comes whispering down the glen, And one fond voice alone is heard--oh! Night is lovely then! But when that voice, in feeble moans of sickness and of pain, But mocks the anxious ear that strives to catch its sounds in vain,-- When silently we watch the bed, by the taper's flickering light, Where all we love is fading fast--how terrible is Night!! More terrible yet, If you happen to get By an old woman's bedside, who, all her life long, Has been what the vulgar call, "coming it strong" In all sorts of ways that are naughty and wrong.-- As Confessions are sacred, it's not very facile To ascertain what the old hag said to Basil; But whatever she said, It fill'd him with dread, And made all his hair stand on end on his head,-- No great feat to perform, inasmuch as said hair Being clipp'd by the tonsure, his crown was left bare, So of course Father Basil had little to spare; But the little he had Seem'd as though't had gone mad, Each lock, as by action galvanic, uprears In the two little tufts on the tops of his ears.-- _What_ the old woman said That so "fill'd him with dread," We should never have known any more than the dead, If the bandy-legg'd Tailor, his errand thus sped, Had gone quietly back to his needle and thread, As he ought; but instead, Curiosity led,-- A feeling we all deem extremely ill-bred,-- He contrived to secrete himself under the bed! --Not that he heard One half, or a third [Illustration: A LEGEND OF DOVER.]