{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_The_Reciter_The_three_black_crows/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_The_Reciter_The_three_black_crows","id":"wikisource_The_Reciter_The_three_black_crows","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Reciter/The_three_black_crows","summary":null,"tags":["Chapbooks","Headers_applying_DefaultSort_key","Pages_with_contributor","Scottish_poetry","Subpages","Works_using_categories_parameter"],"text":"\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\nTHE THREE BLACK CROWS.\n\nTwo honest tradesmen meeting in the Strand,\n\nOne took the other briskly by the hand-\n\n'Hark ye,' said he ''tis an odd story this\n\n'About the crows!'\u2014'I don't know what it is,'\n\nReply'd his friend; 'No! I'm surpris'd at that,\n\n'Where I come from it is the common chat;\n\n'But you shall hear:\u2014an odd affair indeed,\n\n'And that it happen'd they are all agreed.\n\n'Not to detain you from a thing so strange,\n\n'A gentleman that lives not far from 'Change,\n\n'This week, in short, as all the Alley knows,\n\n'Taking a puke has thrown up three black crows!\n\n'Impossible! 'Nay, but 'tis really true;\n\n'I have it from good hands, and so may you.'\n\n'From whose, I pray?' so having nam'd the man,\n\nStraight to enquire, his curious comrade ran.\n\n'Sir did you tell?'\u2014relating the affair\u2014\n\n'Yes Sir, I did, and if 'tis worth your care.\n'Ask Mr Such-a-one, he told it me,\n\nBut by the bye, 'twas two black crows, not three'\n\nResolv'd to trace so wondrous an event,\n\nQuick to the third, the virtuoso went:---\n\n'Sir'---and so forth, 'Why yes, the thing is fact,\n\nThough in regard to number, not exact;\n\nIt was not two black crows, 'twas only one,\n\nThe truth of that you may depend upon:\n\nThe gentleman himself told me the case.'\n\n'Where may I find him?' 'Why in such a place.'\n\nAway goes he, and having found him out,\n\n'Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt;'\n\nThen to his last informant he referr'd,\n\nAnd begg'd to know if true what he had heard---\n\n'Did you Sir, throw up a black crow?' 'Not I,'\n\n'Bless me, how people propagate a lie!\n\nBlack crows have been thrown up, three, two, and one\n\nAnd here I find all comes at last to none!\n\nDid you say nothing of a crow at all?'\n\n'Crow! crow! perhaps I might, now I recall\n\nThe matter o'er.' 'And pray, Sir, what was't?'\n\n'Why, I was horrid sick, and at the last,\n\nI did throw up, and told my neighbour so,\n\nSomething that was---as black Sir, as a crow!'","title":"The Reciter/The three black crows","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":355}