A Night at the Old Inn
We’re brought to places sometimes unforeseen
And opportunity may flourish where
There seems to be none. May I with you share
A mirthful tale laid somewhere in-between?
Without vocation, a young gentleman
Was forced, as only tribulation can,
To leave the world of lustful, wanton life
And don instead monastic cowl and cloak
And though to him the Father never spoke
Abjured from carnal pleasures, and no wife
Would he enjoy for all his four score span.
The God of Mercy had another plan.
His shepherd, forced to stop one eve at last,
Would find himself where a young beauty passed
At a quaint inn, and though he was a man
The inn keep, though his spirits had been sunk
By daughter’s death, thought first to ask the monk
If he would watch her body overnight
And he agreed, but curiosity
Soon bested him; he took a peek to see
If she was, as he’d heard, a fair delight;
The sight of her released him from his funk.
And so, he stood half man, half deity
Alas, the former half he could not stop
He dropped his cloak and then he climbed on top
Forgetting God but finding ecstasy.
He thrust then in and out and spilled his seed
And did so with a most unpracticed speed.
Then finished, he put on again his cloak
And silently sat with the corpse till dawn;
But in a farther room the lots were drawn
And although his beloved never spoke
She satisfied an ancient, aching need.
The next morn, all those present were bereft,
Our monk perhaps for reasons of his own ―
His mind fell back to manly seeds he’d sown;
At last he rose and thanked his host and left.
How quickly did a miracle unfold!
The ravished maiden was at once I’m told
Restored to life and all its youthful vigor
She fairly glowed the passersby would say
Indeed more like a woman every day
But as the months passed she kept getting bigger
Until the birth could not be put on hold.
A year went by; one day the monk appeared
And asked if he could once more stay the night,
But what he saw made him recoil in fright:
She lived, and now the secret he had feared ―
That he had won the night with lusty charms―
Lay red-faced, bawling in his mother’s arms!
The inn keep looked at him with solemn eyes
And not a word was said, yet each one knew
The truth of this queer thing he’d thought to do
And so, to do the better thing, and wise
Appear, and set aside her father’s harms
He left his Godly post and took a wife
And found at last the meaning of his life.
