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The mouldering rim, and gazed aghast,
With breaking eyes ensphered, and sighs,
Into that vacuous cavern vast
That yawned beneath them like the last
Dark home of all, as dead and dusty
With scurf and mould and all things musty
Impregnated, it seemed to kill
The very breath of life and will:
Then to their pens and desks they wandered
Unsteady, tried the nibs and pondered,
Or dashed off bulls to confraternities
Of whom they knew some secret scandal
With covert menace to disband all
The brotherhood; by all th’ eternities
Conjuring them to dub up handsome
Their spiritual sire to ransom:
One such, enough to make you rap your chins,
Had reached the leader of the Capuchins
In Sondrio, the aforesaid Fulks
Or Fuchs, and put him in the sulks,
The which encyclical has whirled us
Too once more ’mid brave Sondrio’s elders.
The Capucini form a body,
Or corporation, dressed in shoddy
Of coarse brown colour, and a hood,
A girdle and a small calotta
Or skull cap: they’ve a bowl for food
The which they beg while doing good:
Complexion mostly terra cotta,
But sometimes ruddy, round and burnished,
In which case with a paunch they’re furnished
Rough as a chestnut’s trunk and bulky,
