Canton Register

RHYME OF SIR CHRISTOPHER

By J. G. Whittier.

From the Atlantic for September

It was Sir Christopher Gardiner,

Knight of the Holy Sepulchre,

From Merry England over the sea,

Who stepped upon the continent

As if his august presence lent

A glory to the colony.

You should have seen him in the street

Of the little Borough of Winnthrop's time,

His rapier dangling at his feet,

Doublet and hose and boot complete,

Prince Rupert hat with ostrich plume,

Gloves that exhaled a faint perfume,

Lustrous curls and air sublime,

And superior manners now obsolete;

He had a way of making things

That made one think of courts and kings,

And lords and ladies of high degree;

So that not having been at court,

Seemed something very little short

Of treason or lèse-majesté.

Such an accomplished knight was he.

His dwelling was just beyond the town,

At what he called his country-seat;

For careless of Fortune's smile or frown,

And weary grown of the world and its ways,

He wished to pass the rest of his days

In a private life and a calm retreat.

But a double life was the life he led;

And while professing to be in search

Of a godly course, and willing, he said,

Nay, anxious to join the Puritan Church,

He made of all this but small account,

And passed his idle hours instead

With roystering Morton or Merry Mount,

That pettifogger from Furnival's Inn,

Lord of misrule and riot and sin,

Who looked on the wine when it was red.

His country-seat was little more

Than a cabin of logs; but in front of the door

A modest flower-bed, thickly sown

With sweet alyssum and columbine,

Made those who saw it at once divine

The touch of some other hand than his own.

And first it was whispered, and then it was known

That he in secret was harboring there

A little lady with golden hair,

Whom he called his cousin, but whom he had wed

In the Italian manner, as men said,

And great was the scandal everywhere.

But worse than this was the vague surmise—

Though none could vouch for it or aver—

That the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre

Was only a Papist in disguise;

And the more to embitter their bitter lives,

And the more to trouble the public mind,

Came letters from England, from two other wives

Whom he had carelessly left behind;

Both of them letters of such a kind

As made the Governor hold his breath:

The one imploring him straight to send

The husband home, that he might amend:

The other asking his instant death,

As the only way to make an end.

The wary Governor deemed it right,

When all his wickedness was revealed,

To send his warrant, signed and sealed,

And take the body of the Knight.

Armed with this mighty instrument,

The Marshal, mounting his gallant steed,

Rode forth from town at the top of his speed,

And followed by all of his bailiffs bold.

As if on high achievement bent,

To storm some castle or stronghold,

Challenge the warder on the wall,

And seize in his ancestral hall

A robber-baron grim and old.

But when through all the dust and heat

He came to Sir Christopher's country-seat,

No Knight he found, nor warder there,

But the little lady with the golden hair,

Who was gathering in the bright sunshine

The sweet alyssum and columbine;

While gallant Sir Christopher, all so gay,

Being forewarned, through the postern-gate

Of his castle wall, had tripped away,

And was keeping a little holiday

In the forest that bounded his estate.

Then as a trusty Squire and true,

The Marshal searched the castle through,

Not crediting what the lady said;

Searched from cellar to garret in vain,

And finding no Knight, came out again,

And arrested the golden damsel instead,

And bore her in triumph into the town,

While from her eyes the tears rolled down

On the sweet alyssum and columbine

That she held in her fingers white and fine.

The Governor's heart was moved to see

So fair a creature caught within

The snares of Satan and of sin,

And read her a little homily

On the folly and wickedness of the lives

Of women half cousins and half wives;

But, seeing that naught his words availed,

He sent her away in a ship that sailed

For Merry England over the sea,

To the two other wives in the old country,

To search her further, since he had failed

To come at the heart of the mystery.

Meanwhile Sir Christopher wandered away

Through pathless woods, for a month and a day,

Shooting pigeons, and sleeping at night

With the noble savage, who took delight

In his feathered hat and velvet vest,

His gun and his rapier and the rest.

But as soon as the noble savage heard

That a bounty was offered for this gay bird,

He wanted to slay him out of hand,

And bring in his beautiful scalp for a show,

Like the glossy head of a kite or crow;

Until he was made to understand

They wanted the bird alive, not dead;

Then he followed him whithersoever he fed,

Through forest and field, and hunted him down,

And brought him prisoner into the town.

Alas! it was a rueful sight,

To see this melancholy knight

In such a dismal and hapless plight:

His hat deformed by rain and dent,

His plumage broken, his doublet rent,

His beard and flowing locks forlorn,

Matted, dishevelled and unshorn,

His boots with dirt and mire besprent;

But dignified in his disgrace,

And wearing an unblushing face,

And thus before the magistrate

He stood to hear the doom or fate.

In vain he strove, with wonted care,

To modify and extenuate

His evil deeds in Church and State;

For gone was now his power to clear

And his pungent words had no more weight

Than feathers flying in the breeze;

With gravity equal to his own

The Governor lent a patient ear

To the ireful, evasive and high-flown,

In which he endeavored to make a clear

That colonial laws were lone revered

When applied to a gallant cavalier,

A gentleman born, and so well known,

And accustomed to move in a higher sphere;

All this the Puritan Governor heard,

And deigned in answer never a word;

But in summary manner shipped away

In a vessel that sailed from Salem Bay

This splendid and famous cavalier,

With his Rupert hat and his Popery,

To Merry England over the sea,

As being unmeet to inhabit here.

Thus endeth the Rhyme of Sir Christopher,

Knight of the Holy Sepulchre,

The first who furnished this barren land

With apples of Sodom and ropes of sand.