XXVI

A SINNER TORMENTED

IE on sinful fantasy!

FIE

Fie on lust and luxury!

Lust is but a bloody fire

Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart, whose flames aspire

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villany;

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,

Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out !

XXVII

THE WISDOM OF THE FOOL

ATHERS that wear rags

FATH

Do make their children blind;

But fathers that bear bags

Shall see their children kind.

Fortune, that arrant whore,

Ne'er turns the key to the poor.

That, Sir, which serves and seeks for gain

And follows but for form,

Will pack when it begins to rain,

And leave thee in the storm.

But I will tarry; the fool will stay,

And let the wise man fly;

The knave turns fool that runs away;

The fool no knave, perdy.

XXVIII

THE PEDLAR'S SONG

WHEN daffodils begin to peer,

With heigh! the doxy over the dale,

Why then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,

With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!

Doth set my pugging tooth on edge ;

For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The lark, that tirra-lyra chants,

With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and

the jay,

Are summer songs for me and my aunts,

While we lie tumbling in the hay.

D

But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
The pale moon shines by night :
And when I wander here and there,
I then do most go right.

If tinkers may have leave to live
And bear the sow-skin budget,
Then my account I well may give
And in the stocks avouch it.

Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a :
A merry heart goes all the day,

Your sad, tires in a mile-a.

35

XXIX

PEDLAR'S CRIES

AWN as white as driven snow;

LA

Cypress black as e'er was crow;
Gloves as sweet as damask roses;
Masks for faces and for noses;
Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,
Perfume for a lady's chamber;
Golden quoifs and stomachers,
For my lads to give their dears:
Pins and poking-sticks of steel,

What maids lack from head to heel :

Come buy of me, come; come buy, come buy ;

Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry:

Come buy.