William Makepeace Thackeray: Verses about Sick

KING CANUTE was weary hearted; he had reigned for years a score,
Battling, struggling, pushing, fighting, killing much and robbing more;
And he thought upon his actions, walking by the wild sea-shore.

'Twixt the Chancellor and Bishop walked the King with steps sedate,
Chamberlains and grooms came after, silversticks and goldsticks great,
Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages,—all the officers of state.

Sliding after like his shadow, pausing when he chose to pause,
If a frown his face contracted, straight the courtiers dropped their jaws;
If to laugh the king was minded, out they burst in loud hee-haws.

But that day a something vexed him, that was clear to old and young:
Thrice his Grace had yawned at table, when his favorite gleemen sung,
Once the Queen would have consoled him, but he bade her hold her tongue.

'Something ails my gracious master,' cried the Keeper of the Seal.
'Sure, my lord, it is the lampreys served to dinner, or the veal?'
'Psha!' exclaimed the angry monarch, 'Keeper, 'tis not that I feel.

''Tis the HEART, and not the dinner, fool, that doth my rest impair:
Can a king be great as I am, prithee, and yet know no care?
Oh, I'm sick, and tired, and weary.'—Some one cried, 'The King's arm-chair!'

Then towards the lackeys turning, quick my Lord the Keeper nodded,
Straight the King's great chair was brought him, by two footmen able-bodied;
Languidly he sank into it: it was comfortably wadded.

'Leading on my fierce companions,' cried he, 'over storm and brine,
I have fought and I have conquered! Where was glory like to mine?'
Loudly all the courtiers echoed: 'Where is glory like to thine?'

'What avail me all my kingdoms? Weary am I now and old;
Those fair sons I have begotten, long to see me dead and cold;
Would I were, and quiet buried, underneath the silent mould!

'Oh, remorse, the writhing serpent! at my bosom tears and bites;
Horrid, horrid things I look on, though I put out all the lights;
Ghosts of ghastly recollections troop about my bed at nights.

'Cities burning, convents blazing, red with sacrilegious fires;
Mothers weeping, virgins screaming vainly for their slaughtered sires.—'
Such a tender conscience,' cries the Bishop, 'every one admires.

'But for such unpleasant bygones, cease, my gracious lord, to search,
They're forgotten and forgiven by our Holy Mother Church;
Never, never does she leave her benefactors in the lurch.

'Look! the land is crowned with minsters, which your Grace's bounty raised;
Abbeys filled with holy men, where you and Heaven are daily praised:
YOU, my lord, to think of dying? on my conscience I'm amazed!'

'Nay, I feel,' replied King Canute, 'that my end is drawing near.'
'Don't say so,' exclaimed the courtiers (striving each to squeeze a tear).
'Sure your Grace is strong and lusty, and may live this fifty year.'

'Live these fifty years!' the Bishop roared, with actions made to suit.
'Are you mad, my good Lord Keeper, thus to speak of King Canute!
Men have lived a thousand years, and sure his Majesty will do't.

'Adam, Enoch, Lamech, Cainan, Mahaleel, Methusela,
Lived nine hundred years apiece, and mayn't the King as well as they?'
'Fervently,' exclaimed the Keeper, 'fervently I trust he may.'

'HE to die?' resumed the Bishop. He a mortal like to US?
Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus:
Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus.

'With his wondrous skill in healing ne'er a doctor can compete,
Loathsome lepers, if he touch them, start up clean upon their feet;
Surely he could raise the dead up, did his Highness think it meet.

'Did not once the Jewish captain stay the sun upon the hill,
And, the while he slew the foemen, bid the silver moon stand still?
So, no doubt, could gracious Canute, if it were his sacred will.'

'Might I stay the sun above us, good sir Bishop?' Canute cried;
'Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride?
If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can command the tide.

'Will the advancing waves obey me, Bishop, if I make the sign?'
Said the Bishop, bowing lowly, 'Land and sea, my lord, are thine.'
Canute turned towards the ocean—'Back!' he said, 'thou foaming brine.

'From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat;
Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master's seat:
Ocean, be thou still! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet!'

But the sullen ocean answered with a louder, deeper roar,
And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling sounding on the shore;
Back the Keeper and the Bishop, back the king and courtiers bore.

And he sternly bade them never more to kneel to human clay,
But alone to praise and worship That which earth and seas obey:
And his golden crown of empire never wore he from that day.
King Canute is dead and gone: Parasites exist alway.

Come all ye Christian people, and listen to my tail,
It is all about a doctor was travelling by the rail,
By the Heastern Counties' Railway (vich the shares I don't desire),
From Ixworth town in Suffolk, vich his name did not transpire.

A travelling from Bury this Doctor was employed
With a gentleman, a friend of his, vich his name was Captain Loyd,
And on reaching Marks Tey Station, that is next beyond Colchest-
er, a lady entered into them most elegantly dressed.

She entered into the Carriage all with a tottering step,
And a pooty little Bayby upon her bussum slep;
The gentlemen received her with kindness and siwillaty,
Pitying this lady for her illness and debillaty.

She had a fust-class ticket, this lovely lady said,
Because it was so lonesome she took a secknd instead.
Better to travel by secknd class, than sit alone in the fust,
And the pooty little Baby upon her breast she nust.

A seein of her cryin, and shiverin and pail,
To her spoke this surging, the Ero of my tail;
Saysee you look unwell, Ma'am, I'll elp you if I can,
And you may tell your ease to me, for I'm a meddicle man.

'Thank you, Sir,' the lady said, 'I only look so pale,
Because I ain't accustom'd to travelling on the Rale;
I shall be better presnly, when I've ad some rest:'
And that pooty little Baby she squeeged it to her breast.

So in the conwersation the journey they beguiled,
Capting Loyd and the meddicle man, and the lady and the child,
Till the warious stations along the line was passed,
For even the Heastern Counties' trains must come in at last.

When at Shoreditch tumminus at lenth stopped the train,
This kind meddicle gentleman proposed his aid again.
'Thank you, Sir,' the lady said, 'for your kyindness dear;
My carridge and my osses is probibbly come here.

'Will you old this baby, please, vilst I step and see?'
The Doctor was a famly man: 'That I will,' says he.
Then the little child she kist, kist it very gently,
Vich was sucking his little fist, sleeping innocently.

With a sigh from her art, as though she would have bust it,
Then she gave the Doctor the child—wery kind he nust it:
Hup then the lady jumped hoff the bench she sat from,
Tumbled down the carridge steps and ran along the platform.

Vile hall the other passengers vent upon their vays,
The Capting and the Doctor sat there in a maze;
Some vent in a Homminibus, some vent in a Cabby,
The Capting and the Doctor vaited vith the babby.

There they sat looking queer, for an hour or more,
But their feller passinger neather on 'em sore:
Never, never back again did that lady come
To that pooty sleeping Hinfnt a suckin of his Thum!

What could this pore Doctor do, bein treated thus,
When the darling Baby woke, cryin for its nuss?
Off he drove to a female friend, vich she was both kind and mild,
And igsplained to her the circumstance of this year little child.

That kind lady took the child instantly in her lap,
And made it very comfortable by giving it some pap;
And when she took its close off, what d'you think she found?
A couple of ten pun notes sewn up, in its little gownd!

Also in its little close, was a note which did conwey
That this little baby's parents lived in a handsome way
And for his Headucation they reglarly would pay,
And sirtingly like gentlefolks would claim the child one day,
If the Christian people who'd charge of it would say,
Per adwertisement in The Times where the baby lay.

Pity of this bayby many people took,
It had such pooty ways and such a pooty look;
And there came a lady forrard (I wish that I could see
Any kind lady as would do as much for me;

And I wish with all my art, some night in MY night gownd,
I could find a note stitched for ten or twenty pound)—
There came a lady forrard, that most honorable did say,
She'd adopt this little baby, which her parents cast away.

While the Doctor pondered on this hoffer fair,
Comes a letter from Devonshire, from a party there,
Hordering the Doctor, at its Mar's desire,
To send the little Infant back to Devonshire.

Lost in apoplexity, this pore meddicle man,
Like a sensable gentleman, to the Justice ran;
Which his name was Mr. Hammill, a honorable beak,
That takes his seat in Worship Street, four times a week.

'O Justice!' says the Doctor, 'instrugt me what to do.
I've come up from the country, to throw myself on you;
My patients have no doctor to tend them in their ills,
(There they are in Suffolk without their drafts and pills!)

'I've come up from the country, to know how I'll dispose
Of this pore little baby, and the twenty pun note, and the close,
And I want to go back to Suffolk, dear Justice, if you please,
And my patients wants their Doctor, and their Doctor wants his feez.'

Up spoke Mr. Hammill, sittin at his desk,
'This year application does me much perplesk;
What I do adwise you, is to leave this babby
In the Parish where it was left, by its mother shabby.'

The Doctor from his worship sadly did depart—
He might have left the baby, but he hadn't got the heart
To go for to leave that Hinnocent, has the law allows,
To the tender mussies of the Union House.

Mother, who left this little one on a stranger's knee,
Think how cruel you have been, and how good was he!
Think, if you've been guilty, innocent was she;
And do not take unkindly this little word of me:
Heaven be merciful to us all, sinners as we be!

The noble King of Brentford
Was old and very sick,
He summon'd his physicians
To wait upon him quick;
They stepp'd into their coaches
And brought their best physick.

They cramm'd their gracious master
With potion and with pill;
They drench'd him and they bled him;
They could not cure his ill.
'Go fetch,' says he, 'my lawyer,
I'd better make my will.'

The monarch's royal mandate
The lawyer did obey;
The thought of six-and-eightpence
Did make his heart full gay.
'What is't,' says he, 'your Majesty
Would wish of me to-day?'

'The doctors have belabor'd me
With potion and with pill:
My hours of life are counted,
O man of tape and quill!
Sit down and mend a pen or two,
I want to make my will.

'O'er all the land of Brentford
I'm lord, and eke of Kew:
I've three-per-cents and five-per-cents;
My debts are but a few;
And to inherit after me
I have but children two.

Prince Thomas is my eldest son,
A sober Prince is he,
And from the day we breech'd him
Till now, he's twenty-three,
He never caused disquiet
To his poor Mamma or me.

'At school they never flogg'd him,
At college, though not fast,
Yet his little-go and great-go
He creditably pass'd,
And made his year's allowance
For eighteen months to last.

'He never owed a shilling.
Went never drunk to bed,
He has not two ideas
Within his honest head—
In all respects he differs
From my second son, Prince Ned.

'When Tom has half his income
Laid by at the year's end,
Poor Ned has ne'er a stiver
That rightly he may spend,
But sponges on a tradesman,
Or borrows from a friend.

'While Tom his legal studies
Most soberly pursues,
Poor Ned most pass his mornings
A-dawdling with the Muse:
While Tom frequents his banker,
Young Ned frequents the Jews.

'Ned drives about in buggies,
Tom sometimes takes a 'bus;
Ah, cruel fate, why made you
My children differ thus?
Why make of Tom a DULLARD,
And Ned a GENIUS?'

'You'll cut him with a shilling,'
Exclaimed the man of wits:
'I'll leave my wealth,' said Brentford,
'Sir Lawyer, as befits;
And portion both their fortunes
Unto their several wits.'

'Your Grace knows best,' the lawyer said
'On your commands I wait.'
'Be silent, Sir,' says Brentford,
'A plague upon your prate!
Come take your pen and paper,
And write as I dictate.'

The will as Brentford spoke it
Was writ and signed and closed;
He bade the lawyer leave him,
And turn'd him round and dozed;
And next week in the churchyard
The good old King reposed.

Tom, dressed in crape and hatband,
Of mourners was the chief;
In bitter self-upbraidings
Poor Edward showed his grief:
Tom hid his fat white countenance
In his pocket-handkerchief.

Ned's eyes were full of weeping,
He falter'd in his walk;
Tom never shed a tear,
But onwards he did stalk,
As pompous, black, and solemn,
As any catafalque.

And when the bones of Brentford—
That gentle king and just—
With bell and book and candle
Were duly laid in dust,
'Now, gentleman,' says Thomas,
'Let business be discussed.

'When late our sire beloved
Was taken deadly ill,
Sir Lawyer, you attended him
(I mean to tax your bill);
And, as you signed and wrote it,
I prithee read the will.'

The lawyer wiped his spectacles,
And drew the parchment out;
And all the Brentford family
Sat eager round about:
Poor Ned was somewhat anxious,
But Tom had ne'er a doubt.

'My son, as I make ready
To seek my last long home,
Some cares I had for Neddy,
But none for thee, my Tom:
Sobriety and order
You ne'er departed from.

'Ned hath a brilliant genius,
And thou a plodding brain;
On thee I think with pleasure,
On him with doubt and pain.'
('You see, good Ned,' says Thomas,
'What he thought about us twain.'

'Though small was your allowance,
You saved a little store;
And those who save a little
Shall get a plenty more.'
As the lawyer read this compliment,
Tom's eyes were running o'er.

'The tortoise and the hare, Tom,
Set out, at each his pace;
The hare it was the fleeter,
The tortoise won the race;
And since the world's beginning
This ever was the case.

'Ned's genius, blithe and singing,
Steps gayly o'er the ground;
As steadily you trudge it
He clears it with a bound;
But dulness has stout legs, Tom,
And wind that's wondrous sound.

'O'er fruits and flowers alike, Tom,
You pass with plodding feet;
You heed not one nor t'other
But onwards go your beat,
While genius stops to loiter
With all that he may meet;

'And ever as he wanders,
Will have a pretext fine
For sleeping in the morning,
Or loitering to dine,
Or dozing in the shade,
Or basking in the shine.

'Your little steady eyes, Tom,
Though not so bright as those
That restless round about him
His flashing genius throws,
Are excellently suited
To look before your nose.

'Thank heaven, then, for the blinkers
It placed before your eyes;
The stupidest are weakest,
The witty are not wise;
Oh, bless your good stupidity,
It is your dearest prize!

'And though my lands are wide,
And plenty is my gold,
Still better gifts from Nature,
My Thomas, do you hold—
A brain that's thick and heavy,
A heart that's dull and cold.

'Too dull to feel depression,
Too hard to heed distress,
Too cold to yield to passion
Or silly tenderness.
March on—your road is open
To wealth, Tom, and success.

'Ned sinneth in extravagance,
And you in greedy lust.'
('I' faith,' says Ned, 'our father
Is less polite than just.')
'In you, son Tom, I've confidence,
But Ned I cannot trust.

'Wherefore my lease and copyholds,
My lands and tenements,
My parks, my farms, and orchards,
My houses and my rents,
My Dutch stock and my Spanish stock,
My five and three per cents,

'I leave to you, my Thomas'—
('What, all?' poor Edward said.
'Well, well, I should have spent them,
And Tom's a prudent head')—
'I leave to you, my Thomas,—
To you in TRUST for Ned.'

The wrath and consternation
What poet e'er could trace
That at this fatal passage
Came o'er Prince Tom his face;
The wonder of the company,
And honest Ned's amaze!

''Tis surely some mistake,'
Good-naturedly cries Ned;
The lawyer answered gravely,
''Tis even as I said;
'Twas thus his gracious Majesty
Ordain'd on his death-bed.

'See, here the will is witness'd,
And here's his autograph.'
'In truth, our father's writing,'
Says Edward, with a laugh;
'But thou shalt not be a loser, Tom,
We'll share it half and half.'

'Alas! my kind young gentleman,
This sharing cannot be;
'Tis written in the testament
That Brentford spoke to me,
'I do forbid Prince Ned to give
Prince Tom a halfpenny.

''He hath a store of money,
But ne'er was known to lend it;
He never help'd his brother;
The poor he ne'er befriended;
He hath no need of property
Who knows not how to spend it.

''Poor Edward knows but how to spend,
And thrifty Tom to hoard;
Let Thomas be the steward then,
And Edward be the lord;
And as the honest laborer
Is worthy his reward,

''I pray Prince Ned, my second son,
And my successor dear,
To pay to his intendant
Five hundred pounds a year;
And to think of his old father,
And live and make good cheer.''

Such was old Brentford's honest testament,
He did devise his moneys for the best,
And lies in Brentford church in peaceful rest.
Prince Edward lived, and money made and spent;
But his good sire was wrong, it is confess'd
To say his son, young Thomas, never lent.
He did. Young Thomas lent at interest,
And nobly took his twenty-five per cent.

Long time the famous reign of Ned endured
O'er Chiswick, Fulham, Brentford, Putney, Kew,
But of extravagance he ne'er was cured.
And when both died, as mortal men will do,
'Twas commonly reported that the steward
Was very much the richer of the two.