The Jackdaw of Rheims
August 19, 2018
Petit poème de l’époque victorienne ayant pour cadre l’archevêché de Reims… découvert suite à une conversation avec une touriste anglaise qui était fière de me montrer l’aigle derrière le gâble…
Il raconte comment un petit choucas des tours vola l’anneau précieux de l’archevêque de Reims
The Jackdaw of Rheims
Richard Harris Barham (1788–1845)
1 The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal’s chair!
2 Bishop, and abbot, and prior were there;
3 Many a monk, and many a friar,
4 Many a knight, and many a squire,
5 With a great many more of lesser degree,–
6 In sooth a goodly company;
7 And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee.
8 Never, I ween,
9 Was a prouder seen,
10 Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,
11 Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims!
12 In and out
13 Through the motley rout,
14 That little Jackdaw kept hopping about;
15 Here and there
16 Like a dog in a fair,
17 Over comfits and cates,
18 And dishes and plates,
19 Cowl and cope, and rochet and pall,
20 Mitre and crosier! he hopp’d upon all!
21 With saucy air,
22 He perch’d on the chair
23 Where, in state, the great Lord Cardinal sat
24 In the great Lord Cardinal’s great red hat;
25 And he peer’d in the face
26 Of his Lordship’s Grace,
27 With a satisfied look, as if he would say,
28 “We two are the greatest folks here to-day!”
29 And the priests, with awe,
30 As such freaks they saw,
31 Said, “The Devil must be in that little Jackdaw!”
32 The feast was over, the board was clear’d,
33 The flawns and the custards had all disappear’d,
34 And six little Singing-boys–dear little souls!
35 In nice clean faces, and nice white stoles,
36 Came, in order due,
37 Two by two,
38 Marching that grand refectory through!
39 A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
40 Emboss’d and fill’d with water, as pure
41 As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,
42 Which a nice little boy stood ready to catch
43 In a fine golden hand-basin made to match.
44 Two nice little boys, rather more grown,
45 Carried lavender-water, and eau de Cologne;
46 And a nice little boy had a nice cake of soap,
47 Worthy of washing the hands of the Pope.
48 One little boy more
49 A napkin bore,
50 Of the best white diaper, fringed with pink,
51 And a Cardinal’s Hat mark’d in “permanent ink.”
52 The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight
53 Of these nice little boys dress’d all in white:
54 From his finger he draws
55 His costly turquoise;
56 And, not thinking at all about little Jackdaws,
57 Deposits it straight
58 By the side of his plate,
59 While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait;
60 Till, when nobody’s dreaming of any such thing,
61 That little Jackdaw hops off with the ring!
62 There’s a cry and a shout,
63 And a deuce of a rout,
64 And nobody seems to know what they’re about,
65 But the Monks have their pockets all turn’d inside out.
66 The Friars are kneeling,
67 And hunting, and feeling
68 The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling.
69 The Cardinal drew
70 Off each plum-colour’d shoe,
71 And left his red stockings exposed to the view;
72 He peeps, and he feels
73 In the toes and the heels;
74 They turn up the dishes,–they turn up the plates,–
75 They take up the poker and poke out the grates,
76 –They turn up the rugs,
77 They examine the mugs:–
78 But, no!–no such thing;–
79 They can’t find THE RING!
80 And the Abbott declared that, “when nobody twigg’d it,
81 Some rascal or other had popp’d in, and prigg’d it!”
82 The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,
83 He call’d for his candle, his bell, and his book!
84 In holy anger, and pious grief,
85 He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!
86 He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed;
87 From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head;
88 He cursed him in sleeping, that every night
89 He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright;
90 He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking,
91 He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
92 He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
93 He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying,
94 He cursed him in living, he cursed him in dying!–
95 Never was heard such a terrible curse!
96 But what gave rise
97 To no little surprise,
98 Nobody seem’d one penny the worse!
99 The day was gone,
100 The night came on,
101 The Monks and the Friars they search’d till dawn;
102 When the Sacristan saw,
103 On crumpled claw,
104 Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw!
105 No longer gay,
106 As on yesterday;
107 His feathers all seem’d to be turn’d the wrong way;–
108 His pinions droop’d–he could hardly stand,–
109 His head was as bald as the palm of your hand;
110 His eye so dim,
111 So wasted each limb,
112 That, heedless of grammar, they all cried, “THAT’S HIM!–
113 That’s the scamp that has done this scandalous thing!
114 That’s the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal’s Ring!”
115 The poor little Jackdaw,
116 When the Monks he saw,
117 Feebly gave vent to the ghost of a caw;
118 And turn’d his bald head, as much as to say,
119 “Pray, be so good as to walk this way!”
120 Slower and slower
121 He limp’d on before,
122 Till they came to the back of the belfry door,
123 Where the first thing they saw,
124 Midst the sticks and the straw,
125 Was the Ring in the nest of that little Jackdaw!
126 Then the great Lord Cardinal call’d for his book,
127 And off that terrible curse he took;
128 The mute expression
129 Served in lieu of confession,
130 And, being thus coupled with full restitution,
131 The Jackdaw got plenary absolution!
132 –When those words were heard,
133 That poor little bird
134 Was so changed in a moment, ‘twas really absurd.
135 He grew sleek, and fat;
136 In addition to that,
137 A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat!
138 His tail waggled more
139 Even than before;
140 But no longer it wagg’d with an impudent air,
141 No longer he perch’d on the Cardinal’s chair.
142 He hopp’d now about
143 With a gait devout;
144 At Matins, at Vespers, he never was out;
145 And, so far from any more pilfering deeds,
146 He always seem’d telling the Confessor’s beads.
147 If any one lied,–or if any one swore,–
148 Or slumber’d in pray’r-time and happen’d to snore,
149 That good Jackdaw
150 Would give a great “Caw!”
151 As much as to say, “Don’t do so any more!”
152 While many remark’d, as his manners they saw,
153 That they “never had known such a pious Jackdaw!”
154 He long lived the pride
155 Of that country side,
156 And at last in the odour of sanctity died;
157 When, as words were too faint
158 His merits to paint,
159 The Conclave determined to make him a Saint;
160 And on newly-made Saints and Popes, as you know,
161 It’s the custom, at Rome, new names to bestow,
162 So they canonized him by the name of Jim Crow!
Notes
1]In 1840 this poem was incorporated into the first series of The Ingoldsby Legends.
50]diaper: fabric woven in a continuous repeated pattern.
80]Twigg’d: colloquial, “observed.”
81]prigg’d: colloquial, “stolen.”
Publication Start Year: 1837
Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
