113
And thus it happened that hard drinking
Became the rage in northern valleys
Where heretofore cool sober thinking
Had put a rein upon the chalice:
When two sous sees you half-seas over,
Philosophy bids reap your clover.
Thus many a half-fed, half-clad blackguard
Would shut this sorry world’s dim woes out
And glorious home at even staggered
With ill-botched boots in holes, and toes out,
As Japhet now, his hose unmended,
In spirals down the bare street wended,
But not so drunk as not to seize
The salient points of the position:
His fellow townsmen, if they please,
May suffocate the Calvin mission:
Be all Geneva purged with fire!
But not his household gods the pyre.
One way alone he saw to save ’em
Blocked out among the common herd:—
To warn the Capuchins—and brave ’em—
Dread thought!—a slender chance, he feared.
Yet who can tell which scale of fate
Prevail shall, avarice or hate?
So sobered now, with heel to shoulder,
He clattered down the cobbly causeway
To where the Capucini moulder
Behind their rusty bars where bore sway
Huge spinners slung on hammocks clothy
Of dusty felts and colours brothy,
And, happily, he found it open—
That convent door with huge nails studded,
