In lonely hut himself he shut,
The friar of Rubygill;
Where the ghostly elf absolved himself,
To follow his own good will:
And he had no lack of canary sack,
To keep his conscience still.
And a damsel well knew, when at lonely midnight
It gleamed on the waters, his signal-lamp-light:
"Over! over!" she warbled with nightingale throat,
And the friar sprung forth at the magical note,
And she crossed the dark stream in his trim ferryboat,
With the friar of Rubygill.
"Look you now," said Robin, "if the friar does not blush.
Many strange sights have I seen in my day, but never till this
moment did I see a blushing friar."
"I think," said the friar, "you never saw one that blushed not,
or you saw good canary thrown away. But you are welcome to laugh
if it so please you. None shall laugh in my company, though it
be at my expense, but I will have my share of the merriment.
The world is a stage, and life is a farce, and he that laughs
most has most profit of the performance. The worst thing is good
enough to be laughed at, though it be good for nothing else;
and the best thing, though it be good for something else,
is good for nothing better."
And he struck up a song in praise of laughing and quaffing, without further
adverting to Marian's insinuated accusation; being, perhaps, of opinion,
that it was a subject on which the least said would be the soonest mended.
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