the Bow Bell, four and twenty prentices,
All upon a Hallowe'en, we prithee, for our joy,
Ring a little turn again for sweet Dick Whittington,
_Flos Mercatorum_, and a barefoot boy!--

"Children of Cheape," did that old Clerk answer,
"You will have a peal, then, for well may you know,
All the bells of London remember Richard Whittington
When they hear the voice of the big Bell of Bow!"--

Clerk with the yellow locks, mellow be thy malmsey!
He was once a prentice, and carolled in the Strand!
Ay, and we are all, too, Marchaunt Adventurers,
Prentices of London, and lords of Engeland.

"Children of Cheape," did that old Clerk answer,
"Hold you, ah hold you, ah hold you all still!
Souling if you come to the glory of a Prentice,
You shall have the Bow Bell rung at your will!"

"Whittington! Whittington! O, turn again, Whittington,
Lord Mayor of London," the big Bell began:
"Where was he born? O, at Pauntley in Gloucestershire
Hard by Cold Ashton, Cold Ashton," it ran.

"_Flos Mercatorum_," moaned the bell of All Hallowes,
"There was he an orphan, O, a little lad alone!"
"Then we all sang," echoed happy St. Saviour's,
"Called him, and lured him, and made him our own.

Told him a tale as he lay upon the hillside,
Looking on his home in the meadow-lands below!"
"Told him a tale," clanged the bell of Cold Abbey;
"Told him the truth," boomed the big Bell of Bow!

Sang of a City that was like a blazoned missal-book,
Black with oaken gables, carven and inscrolled;
Every street a coloured page, and every sign a hieroglyph,
Dusky with enchantments, a City paved with gold;

"Younger son, younger son, up with stick and bundle!"--
Even so we rung for him--"But--kneel before you go;
Watch by your shield, lad, in little Pauntley Chancel,
Look upon the painted panes that hold your Arms a-glow,--

Coat of Gules and Azure; but the proud will not remember it!
And the Crest a Lion's Head, until the new be won!
Far away, remember it! And O, remember this, too,--
Every barefoot boy on earth is but a younger son."

Proudly he answered us, beneath the painted window,--
"Though I be a younger son, the glory falls to me:
While my brother bideth by a little land in Gloucestershire,
All the open Earth is mine, and all the Oc