The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no trouble -
If they recovered they paid him well,
If they died their heirs paid double.
Together they looked at the royal tongue,
As the King on his couch reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace of disease could find.
The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
"Hang him up!" roared the King in a gale, -
In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
The other leech grew a shade pale;
But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription ran, -
The King will be well, if he sleeps one night
In the Shirt of a Happy Man.
Fytte the Second: tells of the search for the Shirt, and how it was nigh
found, but was not, for reasons which are said or sung.
Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
And fast their horses ran,
And many they saw, and to many they spoke,
But they found no Happy Man.
They found poor men who would fain be rich
And rich who thought they were poor;
And men who twisted their waists in stays,
And women that shorthose wore.
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