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 Transcriber's Note:
 [=XVII] = XVII with a line above.


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 A Line-o'-Verse or Two

 By
 Bert Leston Taylor


 The Reilly & Britton Co.
 Chicago




 Copyright, 1911
 by
 The Reilly & Britton Co.




NOTE


For the privilege of reprinting the rimes gathered here I am indebted to
the courtesy of the _Chicago Tribune_ and _Puck_, in whose pages most of
them first appeared. "The Lay of St. Ambrose" is new.

One reason for rounding up this fugitive verse and prisoning it between
covers was this: Frequently--more or less--I receive a request for a
copy of this jingle or that, and it is easier to mention a publishing
house than to search through ancient and dusty files.

The other reason was that I wanted to.

                                        B. L. T.




_TO MY READERS_


_Not merely of this book,--but a larger company, with whom, through the
medium of the_ Chicago Tribune, _I have been on very pleasant terms for
several years,--this handful of rime is joyously dedicated._




THE LAY OF ST. AMBROSE

    "_And hard by doth dwell, in St. Catherine's cell,_
     _Ambrose, the anchorite old and grey._"
                             --THE LAY OF ST. NICHOLAS.


     Ambrose the anchorite old and grey
       Larruped himself in his lonely cell,
     And many a welt on his pious pelt
       The scourge evoked as it rose and fell.

     For hours together the flagellant leather
       Went whacketty-whack with his groans of pain;
     And the lay-brothers said, with a wag of the head,
      "Ambrose has been at the bottle again."

     And such, in sooth, was the sober truth;
       For the single fault of this saintly soul
     Was a desert thirst for the cup accurst,--
       A quenchless love for the Flowing Bowl.

     When he woke at morn with a head forlorn
       And a taste like a last-year swallow's nest,
     He would kneel and pray, then rise and flay
       His sinful body like all possessed.

     Frequently tempted, he fell from grace,
       And as often he found the devil to pay;
     But by diligent scourging and diligent purging
       He managed to keep Old Nick at bay.

     This was the plight of our anchorite,--
       An endless penance condemned to dree,--
     When it chanced one day there came his way
       A Mystical Book with a golden Key.

     This Mystical Book was a guide to health,
       That none might follow and go astray;
     While a turn of the Key unlocked the wealth
       That all unknown in the Scriptures lay.

     Disease is sin, the Book defined;
       Sickness is error to which men cling;
     Pain is merely a state of mind,
       And matter a non-existent thing.

     If a tooth should ache, or a leg should break,
       You simply "affirm" and it's sound again.
     Cut and contusion are only delusion,
       And indigestion a fancied pain.

     For pain is naught if you "hold a thought,"
       Fevers fly at your simple say;
     You have but to affirm, and every germ
       Will fold up its tent and steal away.

            ..........

     From matin gong to even-song
       Ambrose pondered this mystic lore,
     Till what had seemed fiction took on a conviction
       That words had never possessed before.

    "If pain," quoth he, "is a state of mind,
       If a rough hair shirt to silk is kin,--
     If these things are error, pray where's the terror
       In scourging and purging oneself of sin?

    "It certainly seemeth good to me,
       By and large, in part and in whole.
     I'll put it in practice and find if it fact is,
       Or only a mystical rigmarole."

            ..........

     The very next night our anchorite
       Of the Flowing Bowl drank long and deep.
     He argued this wise: "New Thought applies
       No fitter to lamb than it does to sheep."

     When he woke at morn with a head forlorn
       And a taste akin to a parrot's cage,
     He knelt and prayed, then up and flayed
       His sinful flesh in a righteous rage.

    