The Gascon

I AM always inclined to suspect     The best story under the sun     As soon as by chance I detect     That teller and hero are one.     We're all of us prone to conceit,     And like to proclaim our own glory,     But our purpose we're apt to defeat     As actors in chief of our story.     To prove the truth of what I state     Let me an anecdote relate:     A Gascon with his comrade sat     At tavern drinking. This and that     He vaunted with assertion pat.     From gasconade to gasconade     Passed to the conquests he had made     In love.    A buxom country maid,     Who served the wine, with due attention     Lent patient ear to each invention,     And pressed her hands against her side     Her bursting merriment to hide.     To hear our Gascon talk, no Sue     Nor Poll in town but that he knew;     With each he'd passed a blissful night     More to their own than his delight.     This one he loved for she was fair,     That for her glossy ebon hair.     One miss, to tame his cruel rigour,     Had brought him gifts. - She owned his vigour     In short it wanted but his gaze     To set each trembling heart ablaze.     His strength surpassed his luck, - the test -     In one short night ten times he'd blessed     A dame who gratefully expressed     Her thanks with corresponding zest.     At this the maid burst forth, "What more?     "I never heard such lies before!     "Content were I if at that sport     "I had what that poor dame was short."