* *

At little pleasant Pornic church,
It chanced, the pavement wanted repair,
Was taken to pieces: left in the lurch,
A certain sacred space lay bare,
And the boys began research.

'T was the space where our sires would lay a saint,
A benefactor,--a bishop, suppose;
A baron with armor-adornments quaint;
A dame with chased ring and jewelled rose,
Things sanctity saves from taint:

So we come to find them in after-days,
When the corpse is presumed to have done with gauds,
Of use to the living, in many ways;
For the boys get pelf, and the town applauds,
And the church deserves the praise.

They grubbed with a will: and at length--_O cor
Humanum, pectora coeca_, and the rest!--
They found--no gauds they were prying for,
No ring, no rose, but--who would have guessed?--
A double Louis-d'or!

Here was a case for the priest: he heard,
Marked, inwardly digested, laid
Finger on nose, smiled, "A little bird
Chirps in my ear!"--then, "Bring a spade,
Dig deeper!" he gave the word.

And lo! when they came to the coffin-lid,
Or the rotten planks which composed it once,
Why, there lay the girl's skull wedged amid
A mint of money, it served for the nonce
To hold in its hair-heaps hid:

Louis-d'ors, some six times five;
And duly double, every piece.
Now do you see? With the priest to shrive,--
With parents preventing her soul's release
By kisses that keep alive,--

With heaven's gold gates about to ope,--
With friends' praise, gold-like, lingering still,--
What instinct had bidden the girl's hand grope
For gold, the true sort?--"Gold in heaven, I hope;
But I keep earth's, if God will!"

Enough! The priest took the grave's grim yield;
The parents, they eyed that price of sin
As if _thirty pieces_ lay revealed
On the place _to bury strangers in_,
The hideous Potter's Field.

But the priest bethought him: "'Milk that's spilt'
--You know the adage! Watch and pray!
Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt!
It would build a new altar; that we may!"
And the altar therewith was built.

* * * * *

Why I deliver this horrible verse?
As the text of a sermon, which now I preach: