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The Geste of Duke Jocelyn by Farnol, Jeffery, 1878-1952
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A word from our supporters: File extension APP | And you're as slow as your slow knight. Were you as slow when you were young? You may be sure, in my young days, I was most dutiful always. Grown up, I was, it seems to me, No slower than I ought to be. And now, miss, since you pine for verse, Rhyme with my prose I'll intersperse; And, like a doting father, I To hold your interest will try. FYTTE 5And all that chanced him pent in dungeon cell. * * * * *Duke Joc'lyn lay in sad and woeful plight; His hands and feet with massy fetters bound, That clashed, whene'er he moved, with dismal sound; His back against the clammy wall did rest, His heavy head was bowed upon his breast, But, 'neath drawn brows, he watched with wary eye Three ragged 'wights who, shackled, lay hard by, Three brawny rogues who, scowling, fiercely eyed him, And with lewd gibes and mocking gestures plied him. But Joc'lyn, huddled thus against the wall, Seemed verily to heed them none at all, Wherefore a red-haired rogue who thought he slept With full intent upon him furtive crept. But, ere he knew, right suddenly he felt Duke Joc'lyn's battered shoe beneath his belt; And falling back with sudden strangled cry, Flat on his back awhile did breathless lie, Whereat to rage his comrades did begin, And clashed their fetters with such doleful din That from a corner dim a fourth man sprang, And laughed and laughed, until their prison rang. "Well kicked, Sir Fool! Forsooth, well done!" laughed he, "Ne'er saw I, Fool, a fool the like o' thee!" for that same forest-rogue had wrestled with him in the green, and sung for his life the "Song of Roguery." Wherefore he smiled on the fellow and the fellow on him: A man like thee In such a woeful plight-- Like his betters, Is yet a rarer sight. "Ha i' the clout, good fellow, for Folly in fetters is Folly in need, and Folly in need is Folly indeed! But, leaving folly awhile, who art thou and what thy name?" Rob by the few, Which few are right, methinks, for so I do. "Then, Rob, if dost rob thou'rt a robber, and being robber thou'rt perchance in bonds for robbing, Robin?" "Aye, Fool, I, Rob, do rob and have robbed greater robbers that I might by robbery live to rob like robbers again, as thou, by thy foolish folly, fooleries make, befooling fools lesser than thou, that thou, Fool, by such fool-like fooleries may live to fool like fools again!" By Hob and Gob, Though robber-rogue, I swear That 't is great pity Rogue so pretty Must dance upon thin air. On gallows high And wriggle in a noose, I'll none repine Nor weep nor whine, For where would be the use? Yet sad am I That I must die With rogues so base and small, Sly coney-catchers, Poor girdle-snatchers, That do in kennel crawl. "And yet," said Jocelyn, "thou thyself art rogue and thief confessed. How then art better than these thy fellows?" |