by Roger's brick-bat, chance'd to fall,
And Roger had a key that could undo it;
Thro' this same door, at any time of day,
They brought, into the Convent, corn, and hay;----
Sometimes, at dusk, a pretty girl came thro' it:
Just to confess herself, to some grave codger;
Perhaps, she came to John,--perhaps, to Roger.

Out at this portal Roger made a shift
To lug his worst of foes:
For, seizing (as the gout was wont) his toes,
He dragg'd the load he couldn't lift.

Achilles, thus, drew round the Trojan plain,
The ten years' Adversary he had slain.--

Yet,--for I scorn a Grecian to disparage,--
Achilles in more style, and splendour, did it;
_He_ sported Murder strapp'd behind his carriage,--
But _bourgeois_ Roger sneak'd on foot, and hid it.

Roger, however, labour'd on,--
Puffing and tugging;--
And hauling John,
As fishermen, on shore, haul up a boat;
Till, after a great deal of lugging,
He lugg'd him to the edge of the Knight's moat;
And stuck him up so straight upon his rear,
Touching, almost, the water, with his heels,
That the defunct might pass, not seen too near,
For some fat gentleman who bobb'd for eels.

Swiftly did Roger, then, retrace his ground,
Lighter than he came out, by many a pound.

So have I seen, on Marlb'rough downs, a hack,
Ease'd of a great man's chaise, and coming back,
From Bladud's springs, upon the western road;
No bloated Noble's luggage at his rump,
Whose doom's, that dread of pick-pockets, the pump,
He canters home, from Bath, without his load.

Sir Thomas being scrupulous, and queasy,
Couldn't, in all this interval, be easy.

He went to bed;--and, there, began to burn;
Nine times he turn'd, in wondrous perturbation;--
He woke her Ladyship, at every turn,
And gave her, full nine times, complete vexation.

To seek the Duke of Limbs, at length, he rose,
And prowl'd with him, lamenting Fortune's stripes;
Now in the rookery among the crows,
Now squashing in the marsh, among the snipes:

Wishing strange wishes;--among many,
He wish'd--ere he had clapp'd his eyes on any.

All Priests, and Crabsticks, thrown into the fire;--
Or, seeing Providence ordain'd it so,
That Priest, and Crabstick, (to his grief) must grow,
He wish'd stout Crabstick couldn't kill fat Friar.

Men's wishes will be partial, now and then;--
As, in