There’s a cry and a shout,
| |
And a deuce of a rout,
| |
And nobody seems to know what they ’re about,
| |
But the monks have their pockets all turn’d inside out;
|
|
The friars are kneeling,
| |
And hunting, and feeling
| |
The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling.
| |
The Cardinal drew
| |
Off each plum-color’d shoe,
|
|
And left his red stockings expos’d to the view:
| |
He peeps, and he feels
| |
In the toes and the heels;
| |
They turn up the dishes,—they turn up the plates,—
| |
They take up the poker and poke out the grates,
|
|
—They turn up the rugs,
| |
They examine the mugs:
| |
But no!—no such thing;
| |
They can’t find THE RING!
| |
And the Abbot declar’d that, “when nobody twigg’d it,
|
|
Some rascal or other had popp’d in and prigg’d it!”
| |
| |
The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,
| |
He call’d for his candle, his bell, and his book:
| |
In holy anger, and pious grief,
| |
He solemnly curs’d that rascally thief!
|
|
He curs’d him at board, he curs’d him in bed,
| |
From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head!
| |
He curs’d him in sleeping, that every night
| |
He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright;
| |
He curs’d him in eating, he curs’d him in drinking,
|
|
He curs’d him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
| |
He curs’d him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
| |
He curs’d him in walking, in riding, in flying;
| |
He curs’d him in living, he curs’d him in dying!
| |
Never was heard such a terrible curse!
|
|
But what gave rise
| |
To no little surprise,
| |
Nobody seem’d one penny the worse!
| |
| |
The day was gone,
| |
The night came on,
|
|
The monks and the friars they search’d till dawn;
| |
When the sacristan saw,
| |
On crumpled claw,
| |
Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw.
| |
No longer gay,
|
|
As on yesterday;
| |
His feathers all seem’d to be turn’d the wrong way;
| |
His pinions droop’d—he could hardly stand,
| |
His head was as bald as the palm of your hand;
| |
His eye so dim,
|
|
So wasted each limb,
| |
That, heedless of grammar, they all cried,
| |
“THAT ’S HIM!
| |
That’s the scamp that has done this scandalous thing!
| |
That’s the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal’s Ring!”
|
|
The poor little Jackdaw,
| |
When the monks he saw,
| |
Feebly gave vent to the ghost of a caw;
| |
And turn’d his bald head, as much as to say,
| |
“Pray, be so good as to walk this way!”
|
|
Slower and slower
| |
He limp’d on before,
| |
Till they came to the back of the belfry-door,
| |
Where the first thing they saw,
| |
Midst the sticks and the straw,
|
|
Was the RING, in the nest of that little Jackdaw.
| |
| |
Then the great Lord Cardinal call’d for his book,
| |
And off that terrible curse he took;
| |
The mute expression
| |
Serv’d in lieu of confession,
|
|
And, being thus coupled with full restitution,
| |
The Jackdaw got plenary absolution!
| |
—When those words were heard,
| |
That poor little bird
| |
Was so changed in a moment,’t was really absurd.
|
|
He grew sleek and fat;
| |
In addition to that,
| |
A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat.
| |
His tail waggled more
| |
Even than before;
|
|
But no longer it wagg’d with an impudent air,
| |
No longer he perch’d on the Cardinal’s chair.
| |
He hopp’d now about
| |
With a gait devout;
| |
At matins, at vespers, he never was out;
|
|
And, so far from any more pilfering deeds,
| |
He always seem’d telling the Confessor’s beads.
| |
| |
If anyone lied, or if any one swore,
| |
Or slumber’d in pray’r-time and happen’d to snore,
| |
That good Jackdaw
|
|
Would give a great “Caw!”
| |
As much as to say, “Don’t do so anymore!”
| |
While many remark’d, as his manners they saw,
| |
That they “never had known such a pious Jackdaw!”
| |
He long liv’d the pride
|
|
Of that country side,
| |
And at last in the odor of sanctity died;
| |
When, as words were too faint
| |
His merits to paint,
| |
The Conclave determin’d to make him a Saint;
|
|
And on newly-made Saints and Popes, as you know,
| |
It’s the custom, at Rome, new names to bestow,
| |
So they canoniz’d him by the name of Jem Crow!
|
