The Jackdaw of Rheims

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!

(…)

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!


Publication Start Year: 1837 

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908).  A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895.  1895.

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