Touched by the pathos of these rhymes, <br />The Theologian said: 'All praise <br />Be to the ballads of old times <br />And to the bards of simple ways, <br />Who walked with Nature hand in hand, <br />Whose country was their Holy Land, <br />Whose singing robes were homespun brown <br />From looms of their own native town, <br />Which they were not ashamed to wear, <br />And not of silk or sendal gay, <br />Nor decked with fanciful array <br />Of cockle-shells from Outre-Mer.' <br /> <br />To whom the Student answered: 'Yes; <br />All praise and honor! I confess <br />That bread and ale, home-baked, home-brewed, <br />Are wholesome and nutritious food, <br />But not enough for all our needs; <br />Poets--the best of them--are birds <br />Of passage; where their instinct leads <br />They range abroad for thoughts and words, <br />And from all climes bring home the seeds <br />That germinate in flowers or weeds. <br />They are not fowls in barnyards born <br />To cackle o'er a grain of corn; <br />And, if you shut the horizon down <br />To the small limits of their town, <br />What do you but degrade your bard <br />Till he at last becomes as one <br />Who thinks the all-encircling sun <br />Rises and sets in his back yard?' <br /> <br />The Theologian said again: <br />'It may be so; yet I maintain <br />That what is native still is best, <br />And little care I for the rest. <br />'T is a long story; time would fail <br />To tell it, and the hour is late; <br />We will not waste it in debate, <br />But listen to our Landlord's tale.' <br /> <br />And thus the sword of Damocles <br />Descending not by slow degrees, <br />But suddenly, on the Landlord fell, <br />Who blushing, and with much demur <br />And many vain apologies, <br />Plucking up heart, began to tell <br />The Rhyme of one Sir Christopher.<br /><br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tales-of-a-wayside-inn-part-3-interlude-vii/
