At last two famous doctors came,
And one was poor as a rat;
He had passed his life in studious toils
And never found time to grow fat.
The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no trouble;
If they recovered they paid him well,
If they died their heirs paid double.
Together they looked at the royal tongue
As the king on his couch reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace of disease could find.
The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut,"
"Hang him up!" roared the king, in a gale—
In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
The other leech grew a shadow pale;
But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription ran:
"The king will be well if he sleeps one night
In the shirt of a Happy Man."
Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
And fast their horses ran,
And many they saw, and to many they spake,
But they found no Happy Man.
They found poor men who would fain be rich,
And rich who thought they were poor;
And men who twisted their waists in stays,
And women that short hose wore.
They saw two men by the roadside sit,
And both bemoaned their lot;
For one had buried his wife, he said,
And the other one had not.
