Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/556

It seem'd to speak its master's turn of mind,
Content,—and not for praise, but virtue kind.
"Hither the walkers turn with weary feet,
Then bless the mansion, and the master greet:
Their greeting fair, bestow'd with modest guise,
The modest master hears, and thus replies:
'Without a vain, without a grudging heart,
To him, who gives us all, I yield a part;
From him you come, for him accept it here,
A frank and sober, more than costly cheer.
He spoke, and bid the welcome table spread,
Then talk'd of virtue till the time of bed,
When the grave household round his hall repair,
Warn'd by a bell, and close the hours with pray'r.
At length the world, renew'd by calm repose,
Was strong for toil, the dappled morn arose;
Before the pilgrims part, the younger crept
Near the closed cradle, where an infant slept,
And writh'd his neck: the landlord's little pride,
O strange return! grew black, and gasp'd and died.
Horror of horrors! what! his only son!
How look'd the hermit when the fact was done;
Not hell, tho' hell's black jaws in sunder part,
And breathe blue fire, could more assault his heart.
"Confus'd, and struck with silence at the deed,
He flies, but trembling fails to fly with speed.