'I hope, my lord,' said he, 'I not offend.
Are you afraid of me, that am your friend?
I were a beast indeed to do you wrong-
I, who have loved and honour'd you so long:
Stay, gentle sir, nor take a false alarm,
For, on my soul, I never meant you harm.
I come no spy, nor as a traitor press
To learn the secrets of your soft recess:
Far be from Reynard so profane a thought,
But by the sweetness of your voice was brought :
For, as I bid my beads, by chance I heard
The song as of an angel in the yard;
A song that would have charm'd the infernal gods,
And banish'd horror from the dark abodes:
Had Orpheus sung it in the nether sphere,
So much the hymn had pleased the tyrant's ear,
The wife had been detain'd, to keep the husband
there.
'My lord, your sire familiarly I knew, A peer deserving such a son as you:
He, with your lady-mother, (whom Heaven rest!)
Has often graced my house, and been my guest.
To view his living features does me good,
For I am your poor neighbour in the wood,
And in my cottage should be proud to see
The worthy heir of my friend's family.
'But since I speak of singing, let me say, As with an upright heart I safely may,
That, save yourself, there breathes not on the ground,
One like your father for a silver sound.
So sweetly would he wake the winter day,
That matrons to the church mistook their way,
And thought they heard the merry organ play.
And he to raise his voice with artful care,
(What will not beaux attempt to please the fair?)
On tiptoe stood to sing with greater strength,
And stretch'd his comely neck at all the length;
And while he strain'd his voice to pierce the skies,
As saints in raptures use, would shut his eyes,
That the sound striving through the narrow throat,
His winking might avail to mend the note.
By this, in song, he never had his peer,
From sweet Cecilia down to Chanticleer;
Not Maro's muse, who sung the mighty man,'
Nor Pindar's heavenly lyre, nor Horace when a
Your ancestors proceed from race divine:
From Brennus and Belinus is your line,
Who gave to sovereign Rome such loud alarms,
That ev'n the priests were not excused from arms.
'Besides, a famous monk 4 of modern times,
Has left of cocks recorded in his rhymes,
That of a parish-priest the son and heir,
(When sons of priests were from the proverb clear)
Affronted once a cock of noble kind,
And either lamed his legs, or struck him blind; For which the clerk his father was disgraced,
And in his benefice another placed.
Now sing, my lord, if not for love of me,
Yet for the sake of sweet saint Charity;
Make hills and dales, and earth and heaven rejoice, And emulate your father's angel voice.'
The cock was pleased to hear him speak so fair, And proud beside, as solar people are;
4 Nigellus Wireker, in Speculum Stullorum.
Nor could the treason from the truth descry,
So was he ravish'd with this flattery:
So much the more, as from a little elf
He had a high opinion of himself:
Though sickly, slender, and not large of limb,
Concluding all the world was made for him.
Ye princes, raised by poets to the gods,
And Alexander'd up in lying odes,
Believe not every flattering knave's report:
There's many a Reynard lurking in the court;
And he shall be received with more regard,
And listen'd to, than modest truth is heard.
This Chanticleer, of whom the story sings, Stood high upon his toes, and clapp'd his wings; Then stretch'd his neck, and wink'd with both his eyes,
Ambitious, as he sought the Olympic prize;
But while he pain'd himself to raise his note,
False Reynard rush'd, and caught him by the throat:
Then on his back he laid the precious load,
And sought his wonted shelter of the wood;
Swiftly he made his way, the mischief done,
Of all unheeded, and pursued by none.
Alas! what stay is there in human state,
Or who can shun inevitable fate?
The doom was written, the decree was past,
Ere the foundations of the world were cast!
In Aries though the sun exalted stood,
His patron-planet to procure his good;
Yet Saturn was his mortal foe, and he
In Libra raised, opposed the same degree:
The rays both good and bad, of equal power,
Each thwarting other, made a mingled hour.
On Friday morn he dreamt this direful dream,
Cross to the worthy native, in his scheme!
Ah, blissful Venus, goddess of delight,
How couldst thou suffer thy devoted knight
On thy own day to fall by foe oppress'd,
The wight of all the world who served thee best?
Who, true to love, was all for recreation,
And minded not the work of propagation.
Gaufride, 5 who couldst so well in rhyme complain
The death of Richard, with an arrow slain;
Why had not I thy muse, or thou my heart,
To sing this heavy dirge with equal art!
That I like thee of Friday might complain;
For on that day was Cœur de Lion slain.
Not louder cries, when Ilium was in flames,
Were sent to heaven by woful Trojan dames,
When Pyrrhus toss'd on high his burnish'd blade,
And offer'd Priam to his father's shade,
Than for the cock the widow'd poultry made.
Fair Partlet first, when he was borne from sight,
With sovereign shrieks bewail'd her captive knight,
Far louder than the Carthaginian wife,
When Asdrubal, her husband, lost his life;
When she beheld the smouldering flames ascend,
And all the Punic glories at an end:
Willing into the fires she plunged her head
With greater ease than others seek their bed.
Not more aghast the matrons of renown,
When tyrant Nero burn'd the imperial town,
Shriek'd for the downfal in a doleful cry,
For which their guiltless lords were doom'd to die.
5 Or Geoffrey de Vinsauf, a Norman historian.
Now to my story I return again :
The trembling widow, and her daughters twain,
This woful cackling cry with horror heard,
Of those distracted damsels in the yard;
And starting up, beheld the heavy sight,
How Reynard to the forest took his flight,
And cross his back, as in triumphant scorn,
The hope and pillar of the house was borne.
"The fox, the wicked fox!' was all the cry;
Out from his house ran every neighbour nigh:
The vicar first, and after him the crew,
With forks and staves the felon to pursue.
Ran Coll our dog, and Talbot with the band,
And Malkin, with her distaff in her hand;
Ran cow and calf, and family of hogs,
In panic horror of pursuing dogs,
With many a deadly grunt and doleful squeak,
Poor swine! as if their pretty hearts would break.
The shouts of men, the women in dismay,
With shrieks augment the terror of the day.
The ducks that heard the proclamation cried,
And fear'd a persecution might betide,
Full twenty miles from town their voyage take,
Obscure in rushes of the liquid lake.
The geese fly o'er the barn; the bees, in arms,
Drive headlong from the waxen cells in swarms.
Jack Straw at London-stone, with all his rout,
Struck not the city with so loud a shout;
Not when with English hate they did pursue
A Frenchman, or an unbelieving Jew:
Not when the welkin rang with
one and all ;'
And echoes bounded back from Fox's hall;
Earth seem'd to sink beneath, and heaven above to
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