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 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; 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? If tinkers may have leave to live Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, Your sad, tires in a mile-a. 35 XXIX PEDLAR'S CRIES LAWN as white as driven snow; Cypress black as e'er was crow; Gloves as sweet as damask roses; Bugle bracelet, necklace amber, 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. |