The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt/The Jovial Priest's Confession
THE JOVIAL PRIEST'S CONFESSION.
There is already an imitation by Mr. Huddesford of the following reverend piece of wit; and one of the passages in it beats any thing in the present version. It is the beginning of the last stanza,—
Mysterious and prophetic truthsI never could unfold 'em,Without a flagon of good wine,And a slice of cold ham.
The translation here offered to the reader is intended to be a more literal picture of the original, and to retain more of its intermixture of a grave and churchman-like style. The original is preserved in the Remains of the learned Camden, who says, in his pleasant way, that "Walter de Mapes, Archdeacon of Oxford, who, in the time of King Henry the Second, filled England with his merriments, confessed his love to good liquor in this manner:"—
I devise to end my days—in a tavern drinking;May some Christian hold for me—the glass when I am shrinking;That the Cherubim may cry—when they see me sinking,God be merciful to a soul—of this gentleman's way of thinking.
A glass of wine amazingly—enlighteneth one's internals;'Tis wings bedewed with nectar—that fly up to supernals;Bottles cracked in taverns—have much the sweeter kernels,Than the sups allowed to us—in the college journals.
Every one by nature hath a mould which he was cast in;I happen to be one of those-who never could write fasting; By a single little boy—I should be surpass'd inWriting so: I'd just as lief—be buried, tomb'd and grass'd in.
Every one by nature hath—a gift too, a dotation:I, when I make verses,—do get the inspirationOf the very best of wine—that comes into the nation:It maketh sermons to abound—for edification.
Just as liquor floweth good—floweth forth my lay so;But I must moreover eat—or I could not say so;Nought it availeth inwardly—should I write all day so;But with God's grace after meat—I beat Ovidius Naso.
Neither is there given to me—prophetic animation,Unless when I have eat and drank—yea, ev'n to saturation;Then in my upper story—hath Bacchus domination,And Phœbus rusheth into me, and beggareth all relation.