That the people of earth to the present day,
Attend to his summons and freely obey:
Tinkers, tanners, cobblers, all,
Are roused from rest at his royal call,490
And shuffle their shoes on before it is light,
To trudge to the workshop.
Eu. I warrant you're right;
I know to my cost, by the cloak that I lost;
It was owing to him I was robbed and beguiled.
For a feast had been made for a neighbour's child,
To give it a name; and I went as a guest,
And sat there carousing away with the rest;
But drinking too deep, I fell soundly asleep;495
And he began crowing; and I never knowing,
But thinking it morning, went off at the warning,
(With the wine in my pate, to the city gate)
And fell in with a footpad was lying in wait,
Just under the town; and was fairly knocked down;
Then I tried to call out; but before I could shout,
He stripped me at once with a sudden pull,
Of a bran new mantle of Phrygian wool.
Peis. . . . Then the kite was the monarch of Greece heretofore . . .
Hoo. Of Greece?
Peis. . . . and instructed our fathers of yore,500
On beholding a kite, to fall down and adore . . .
Eu. Well, a thing that befell me, was comical quite,
I threw myself down on beholding a kite;
But turning my face up to stare at his flight,
With a coin in my mouth,[1] forgetting my penny,
I swallowed it down, and went home without any.
Peis. . . . In Sidon and Egypt the Cuckoo was king;
They wait to this hour for the Cuckoo to sing;
And when he begins, be it later or early,505
They reckon it lawful to gather their barley . . .
Eu. Ah, thence it comes our harvest cry,
Cuckoo, Cuckoo, to the passers-by.
- ↑ It was usual with the Greeks to put small pieces of silver coin in their mouths, a custom which the turnpike men of Great Britain continued to retain within the recollection of the writer.
