When, as words were too faint
His merits to paint,
The Conclave determined 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 canonized him by the name of Jim Crow!
A LAY OF ST. DUNSTAN.
'This holy childe Dunstan was borne in ye yere of our Lorde IX. hondred & XXV. that tyme regnynge in this londe Kinge Athelston. …
'Whan it so was that Saynt Dunstan was wery of prayer than used he to werke in goldsmythes werke with his owne handes for to eschewe ydelnes.'Golden Legend.
ST. DUNSTAN stood in his ivied tower,
Alembic, crucible, all were there;
When in came Nick to play him a trick,
In guise of a damsel passing fair.
Every one knows
How the story goes:
He took up the tongs and caught hold of his nose.
But I beg that you won't for a moment suppose
That I mean to go through, in detail, to you
A story at least as trite as it's true;
Nor do I intend
An instant to spend
On the tale, how he treated his monarch and friend,
When, bolting away to a chamber remote,
Inconceivably bored by his Witen-gemote,
Edwy left them all joking,
And drinking, and smoking,
So tipsily grand, they'd stand nonsense from no King,
But sent the Archbishop
Their Sovereign to fish up,
With a hint that perchance on his crown he might feel taps,
Unless he came back straight and took off his heel-taps.
You don't want to be plagued with the same story twice,
And may have seen this one, by W. Dyce,
At the Royal Academy, very well done,
And mark'd in the catalogue Four, seven, one.
You might there view the Saint, who in sable array'd is,
Coercing the Monarch away from the Ladies;
