A Fable for Feasters

In England, long before that royal Mormon
  King Henry VIII found out that monks were quacks,
And took their lands and money from the poor men,
  And brought their abbeys tumbling at their backs,
There was a village founded by some Norman
  Who levied on all travelers his tax;
    Nearby this hamlet was a monastary
    Inhabited by a band of friars merry.

They were possessors of rich lands and wide,
  An orchard, and a vineyard, and a dairy;
Whenever some old villainous baron died,
  He added to their hoards⁠—a deed which ne’er he
Had done before⁠—their fortune multiplied,
  As if they had been kept by a kind fairy.
    Alas! no fairy visited their host,
    Oh, no; much worse than that, they had a ghost.

Some wicked and heretical old sinner
  Perhaps, who had been walled up for his crimes;
At any rate, he sometimes came to dinner,
  Whene’er the monks were having merry times.
He stole the fatter cows and left the thinner
  To furnish all the milk⁠—upset the chimes,
    And once he set the prior on the steeple,
    To the astonishment of all the people.

When Christmas time was near the Abbot vowed
  They’d eat their meal from ghosts and phantoms free,
The fiend must stay home⁠—no ghosts allowed
  At this exclusive feast. From over sea
He purchased at his own expense a crowd
  Of relics from a Spanish saint⁠—said he:
    “If ghosts come uninvited, then, of course,
    I’ll be compelled to keep them off by force.”

He drenched the gown he wore with holy water,
  The turkeys, capons, boars, they were to eat,
He even soakt the uncomplaining porter
  Who stood outside the door from head to feet.
To make a rather lengthy story shorter,
  He left no wise precaution incomplete;
    He doused the room in which they were to dine,
    And watered everything except the wine.

So when all preparations had been made,
  The jovial epicures sat down to table.
The menus of that time I am afraid
  I don’t know much about⁠—as well’s I’m able
I’ll go through the account: They made a raid
  On every bird and beast in Aesop’s fable
    To fill out their repast, and pies and puddings,
    And jellies, pasties, cakes among the good things.

A mighty peacock standing on both legs
  With difficulty kept from toppling over,
Next came a viand made of turtle eggs,
  And after that a great pie made of plover,
And flagons which perhaps held several kegs
  Of ale, and cheese which they kept under cover.
    Last, a boar’s head, which to bring in took for pages,
    His mouth an apple held, his skull held sausages.

Over their Christmas wassail the monks dozed,
  A fine old drink, though now gone out of use⁠—
His feet upon the table superposed
  Each wisht he had not eaten so much goose.
The Abbot with proposing every toast
  Had drank more than he ought t’ have of grape juice.
    The lights began to burn distinctly blue,
    As in ghost stories lights most always do.

The doors, though barred and bolted most securely,
  Gave way⁠—my statement nobody can doubt,
Who knows the well known fact, as you do surely⁠—
  That ghosts are fellows whom you can’t keep out;
It is a thing to be lamented sorely
  Such slippery folk should be allowed about,
    For often they drop in at awkward moments,
    As everybody’ll know who reads this romance.

The Abbot sat as pasted to his chair,
  His eye became the size of any dollar,
The ghost then took him roughly by the hair
  And bade him come with him, in accents hollow.
The friars could do nought but gape and stare,
  The spirit pulled him rudely by the collar,
    And before any one could say “O jiminy!”
    The pair had vanisht swiftly up the chimney.

Naturally every one searcht everywhere,
  But not a shred of Bishop could be found,
The monks, when anyone questioned, would declare
  St. Peter’d snatcht to heaven their lord renowned,
Though the wicked said (such rascals are not rare)
  That the Abbot’s course lay nearer underground;
    But the church straightaway put to his name the handle
    of Saint, thereby rebuking all such scandal.

But after this the monks grew most devout,
  And lived on milk and breakfast food entirely;
Each morn from four to five one took a knout
  And flogged his mates ’til they grew good and friarly.
Spirits from that time forth they did without,
  And lived the admiration of the shire. We
    Got the veracious record of those doings
    From an old manuscript found in the ruins.