gie us,' Monk,
'To see oursels as others see us'--drunk;
'It wad frae monie a blunder free us'--list!--
'And foolish notion.' Abbot, bishop, priest,
'What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e' you all,
'And ev'n devotion.' Cowls and robes would fall,
And sometimes leave a bishop but a beast,
And show a leper sore where erst they made a priest."

[CW] Tripping. See Burns' "_Address to the Deil_"

Not to be beat the jolly monk filled up
His silver mug with rare old Burgundy;
"Here's to your health," he said, "your Majesty"--
And drained the brimming goblet at a gulp--
"'For when the Devil was sick the Devil a monk would be;
But when the Devil got well a devil a monk was he.'
_In vino veritas_ is true, no doubt--
When wine goes in teetotal truth comes out.
To shake a little Shakespeare in the wine:
'Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall';
But in the realm of Fate, as I opine,
A devil a virtue is or sin at all.
'The Devil be damned' is what we preach, you know it--
At mass and vespers, holy-bread and dinner:
From priest to pope, from pedagogue to poet,
We sanctify the sin and damn the sinner.
This poet Shakespeare, whom I read with pleasure,
Wrote once--I think, in taking his own 'Measure':--
'They say best men are molded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad.' The reason halts:
If read between the lines--not by the letter--
'Tis plain enough that Shakespeare was atrimmin'
His own unruly ship and furling sail
To meet a British tempest or a gale,
And keep cold water from his wine and women.
Now I'll admit, when he's a little mellow,
The Devil himself's a devilish clever fellow,
And, though his cheeks and paunch are somewhat shrunk,
He only lacks a cowl to make a monk.
Time is the mother of twins _et hic et nunc;_
Come, hood your horns and fill the mug abrimmin',
For we are cheek by jowl on wit and wine and women."

And so the monk and Devil filled the mug,
And quaffed and chaffed and laughed the night away;
And when the "wee sma" hours of night had come,
The monk slipped out and stole the abbot's rum;
And when the abbot came at break of day,
There cheek by jowl--horns, hoofs, and hood--they lay,
With open missal and an empty jug,
And broken beads and badly battered mug--
In fond embrace--dead drunk upon the rug.

Think not, wise reader, that the bard hath drunk
The wine that fumed these vagaries from the monk;
Nor, in the devil ethics thou hast read,
There s