CXLIV

NUN'S LAMENT FOR PHILIP

SPARROW

When I remember'd again

How my Philip was slain,
I wept and I wailed,
The tears down hailed;

But nothing it avail'd

To call Philip again

Whom Gib our cat hath slain.

Heu, heu, me,

That I am woe for thee!

Levavi oculos meos in montis,
Would that I had Xenophontis
Or Socrates the Wise,
To show me their device
Moderately to take

This sorrow that I make

For Philip Sparrow's sake!
It had a velvet cap,
And would sit on my lap,
And seek after small worms,

And sometimes white bread crumbs;
And many times and oft

Within my breast soft

It would lie and rest.

Sometimes he would gasp

When he saw a wasp;

A fly or a gnat,

He would fly at that;

And prettily he would pant
When he saw an ant;
U

Lord, how he would pry
After the butterfly!

Lord, how he would hop
After the grasshop!

And when I said, Phip, Phip,
Then he would leap and skip,
And take me by the lip.

De profundis clamavi
When I saw my sparrow die.
Vengeance I ask and cry,
By way of exclamation,
On all the whole nation
Of cats wild and tame;
That cat especially
That slew so cruelly
My little pretty sparrow
That I brought up at Carow.

O cat of churlish kind,
The fiend was in thy mind.

I'v

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I would thou hadst been blind!

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CXLVI

THE DRAGON OF WANTLEY

old stories tell how Hercules

A dragon slew at Lerna,

With seven heads and fourteen eyes,
To see and well discern-a:

But he had a club, this dragon to drub,
Or he ne'er had done it, I warrant ye :
But More of More-hall, with nothing at all,
He slew the dragon of Wantley.

This dragon had two furious wings,

Each one upon each shoulder;
With a sting in his tail as long as a flail,
Which made him bolder and bolder.
He had long claws, and in his jaws
Four and forty teeth of iron;

With a hide as tough as any buff,

Which did him round environ.

Have you not heard how the Trojan horse
Held seventy men in his belly?

This dragon was not quite so big,

But very near, I'll tell ye;

Devour'd he poor children three,

That could not with him grapple ;

And at one sup he ate them up,

As one would eat an apple.

All sorts of cattle this dragon would eat,
Some say he ate up trees,

Besp

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