The Three Beggars
"Though to my feathers i,
I have stood here from break of day.
I have not found a thing to eat,
For only rubbish es my way.
Am I to live on lebeen-lone?
Muttered the old e of Gort.
"For all my pains on lebeen-lone?
King Guaire walked amid his court
The palace-yard and river-side
And there to three old beggars said,
"You that have wandered far and wide
ravel out whats in my head.
Do men who least desire get most,
et the most who most desire?
A beggar said, "They get the most
Whom man or devil ot tire,
And what could make their muscles taut
Unless desire had made them so?
But Guaire laughed with secret thought,
"If that be true as it seems true,
One of you three is a rich man,
For he shall have a thousand pounds
Who is first asleep, if but he
Sleep before the third noon sounds."
And thereon, merry as a bird
With his old thoughts, King Guaire went
From river-side and palace-yard
Ahem to their argument.
"And if I win, one beggar said,
Though I am old I shall persuade
A pretty girl to share my bed;
The sed: "I shall learn a trade;
The third: "Ill hurry to the course
Among the entlemen,
And lay it all upon a horse;
The sed: "I have thought again:
A farmer has more dignity.
Oo anhed and cried:
The exorbitant dreams of beggary.
That idleness had boro pride,
Sang through their teeth from noon to noon;
And when the sd twilight brought
The frenzy of the beggars moon
None closed his blood-shot eyes but sought
To keep his fellows from their sleep;
All shouted till their anger grew
And they were whirling in a heap.
They mauled and bit the whole night through;
They mauled and bit till the day shone;
They mauled and bit through all that day
And till anht had gone,
Or if they made a moments stay
They sat upon their heels to rail,,
And when old Guaire came and stood
Before the three to end this tale,
They were ingling lid blood
"Times up, he cried, and all the three
With blood-shot eyes upon him stared.
"Times up, he eried, and all the three
Fell down upon the dust and snored.
`Maybe I shall be lucky yet,
Now they are silent, said the e.
`Though to my feathers i
Ive stood as I were made of stone
Ahe rubbish run about,
Its certain there are trout somewhere
And maybe I shall take a trout
but I do not seem to care.