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.

      Whacketty-whack on breast and back,

      Whacketty-whack, before, behind;

      But he held the thought as he laid it on,

      “Pain is merely a state of mind.”

      Whacketty-whack on breast and back,

      Whacketty-whack on calf and shin;

      And the lay-brothers said, with a wag of the head,

      “Ain’t he the glutton for discipline!”

      Now every night our anchorite

      Was exceedingly tight when he went to bed.

      The scourge that once pained him no longer restrained him,

      Nor even the fear of an aching head.

      For he woke at morn with a pate as clear

      As the silvery chime of the matin bell;

      And without any jogging he fell to his flogging,

      And larruped himself in his lonely cell.

      But the leather had lost its power to sting;

      To pangs of the flesh he was now immune;

      His rough hair shirt no longer hurt,

      Nor the pebbles he wore in his wooden shoon.

      When conscience was troubled he cheerfully doubled

      His matinal dose of discipline; —

      A deuce of a scourging, sufficient for purging

      The Devil himself of original sin.

      Whacketty-whack on breast and back,

      Whacketty-whack from morn to noon;

      Whacketty-whacketty-whacketty-whack! —

      Till the abbey rang with the dismal tune.

      Deacon and prior, lay-brother and friar

      Exclaimed at these whoppings spectacular;

      And even the Abbot remarked that the habit

      Of scourging oneself might be carried too far.

      “My son,” said he, “I am pleased to see

      Such penance as never was known before;

      But you raise such a racket in dusting your jacket,

      The noise is becoming a bit of a bore.

      “How