{
 "id": "t-s-eliot/a-fable-for-feasters",
 "title": "A Fable for Feasters",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "T. S. Eliot",
 "poet_slug": "t-s-eliot",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Juvenilia",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1905,
  "venue": "The Smith Academy Record, vol. 8, no. 2 (February 1905)",
  "note": "Cited from John Hayward's Poems Written in Early Youth (1967) and Donald Gallup's T. S. Eliot: A Bibliography (revised edition, 1969). Written as a school exercise at Smith Academy in St Louis.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://theworld.com/~raparker/exploring/tseliot/works/poems/eliot-harvard-poems.html"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/t-s-eliot_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1567",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009592742",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1321",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001835100",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100218549",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems19091925030616mbp",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedpoems1900elio",
   "https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20200705",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemswritteninea00elio",
   "https://theworld.com/~raparker/exploring/tseliot/works/poems/eliot-harvard-poems.html"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 96,
  "n_stanzas": 12,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "In England, long before that royal Mormon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "King Henry VIII found out that monks were quacks,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And took their lands and money from the poor men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And brought their abbeys tumbling at their backs,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There was a village founded by some Norman",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who levied on all travelers his tax;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nearby this hamlet was a monastary",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Inhabited by a band of friars merry.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They were possessors of rich lands and wide,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An orchard, and a vineyard, and a dairy;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whenever some old villainous baron died,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He added to their hoards⁠—a deed which ne’er he",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Had done before⁠—their fortune multiplied,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if they had been kept by a kind fairy.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas! no fairy visited their host,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, no; much worse than that, they had a ghost.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Some wicked and heretical old sinner",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps, who had been walled up for his crimes;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "At any rate, he sometimes came to dinner,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whene’er the monks were having merry times.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He stole the fatter cows and left the thinner",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To furnish all the milk⁠—upset the chimes,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And once he set the prior on the steeple,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "To the astonishment of all the people.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When Christmas time was near the Abbot vowed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They’d eat their meal from ghosts and phantoms free,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The fiend must stay home⁠—no ghosts allowed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At this exclusive feast. From over sea",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He purchased at his own expense a crowd",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of relics from a Spanish saint⁠—said he:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“If ghosts come uninvited, then, of course,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll be compelled to keep them off by force.”",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He drenched the gown he wore with holy water,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The turkeys, capons, boars, they were to eat,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He even soakt the uncomplaining porter",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who stood outside the door from head to feet.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To make a rather lengthy story shorter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He left no wise precaution incomplete;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He doused the room in which they were to dine,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And watered everything except the wine.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So when all preparations had been made,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The jovial epicures sat down to table.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The menus of that time I am afraid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I don’t know much about⁠—as well’s I’m able",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll go through the account: They made a raid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On every bird and beast in Aesop’s fable",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To fill out their repast, and pies and puddings,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And jellies, pasties, cakes among the good things.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A mighty peacock standing on both legs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With difficulty kept from toppling over,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Next came a viand made of turtle eggs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And after that a great pie made of plover,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And flagons which perhaps held several kegs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of ale, and cheese which they kept under cover.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Last, a boar’s head, which to bring in took for pages,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "His mouth an apple held, his skull held sausages.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Over their Christmas wassail the monks dozed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A fine old drink, though now gone out of use⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "His feet upon the table superposed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each wisht he had not eaten so much goose.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The Abbot with proposing every toast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had drank more than he ought t’ have of grape juice.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The lights began to burn distinctly blue,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "As in ghost stories lights most always do.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The doors, though barred and bolted most securely,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gave way⁠—my statement nobody can doubt,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who knows the well known fact, as you do surely⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That ghosts are fellows whom you can’t keep out;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It is a thing to be lamented sorely",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such slippery folk should be allowed about,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For often they drop in at awkward moments,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "As everybody’ll know who reads this romance.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The Abbot sat as pasted to his chair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His eye became the size of any dollar,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The ghost then took him roughly by the hair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bade him come with him, in accents hollow.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The friars could do nought but gape and stare,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The spirit pulled him rudely by the collar,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And before any one could say “O jiminy!”",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "The pair had vanisht swiftly up the chimney.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Naturally every one searcht everywhere,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not a shred of Bishop could be found,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The monks, when anyone questioned, would declare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "St. Peter’d snatcht to heaven their lord renowned,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Though the wicked said (such rascals are not rare)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the Abbot’s course lay nearer underground;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But the church straightaway put to his name the handle",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "of Saint, thereby rebuking all such scandal.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But after this the monks grew most devout,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lived on milk and breakfast food entirely;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Each morn from four to five one took a knout",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And flogged his mates ’til they grew good and friarly.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Spirits from that time forth they did without,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lived the admiration of the shire. We",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Got the veracious record of those doings",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "From an old manuscript found in the ruins.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}