258 ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS
The Royal Visit
No one knows who wrote this rare and vivid poem. It was found
in Christ Church Library at Oxford, and is a seventeenth-century
manuscript. From its abrupt opening it might be a fragment, yet it
is so perfect that we would not have it a line longer or shorter*
YET if his majesty, our sovereign lord?
Should, of his own accord
Friendly himself invite,
And say, " I'll be your guest tomorrow night,"
How should we stir ourselves, call and command
All hands to work ! " Let no man idle stand !
Set me fine Spanish tables in the hall,
See they be fitted all;
Let there be room to eat,
And order taken that there want no meat!
See every sconce and candlestick made bright
That without tapers they may give a light!
Look to the presence : are the carpets spread,
The dais o'er the head,
The cushions in the chairs,
And all the candles lighted on the stairs ?
Perfume the chambers, and in any case
Let each man give attendance in his place."
Thus, if the king were coming, would we do9
And twere good reason too ;
For tis a duteous thing
To show all honour to an earthly king,
And after all our travail and our cost,
So be he pleased, to think no labour lost.
But at the coming of the King of Heaven
All's set at six and seven :
We wallow in our sin,
Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn.
We entertain him always as a stranger,
And, as at first, still lodge Him in the manger.
Not the Way to Heaven
•E may not go to heaven in feather beds ; it is
not the way. Sir Thomas More
A Celebrated Problem
nnwAS a celebrated problem among the ancient mythologists
JL what was the Strongest thing, what the Wisest, and what the
Greatest ? Concerning which twas this determined, that the
strongest thing was Necessity, the wisest was Time, and the greatest
was the Heart of Man. Norris of Bemerton in the 17th century