And if the house be foule,
Or platter, dish, or bowle,
Upstairs we nimbly creepe,
And find the sluts asleepe:

Then we pinch their armes and thighes,
None escape, nor none espies.

But if the house be swept,
And from uncleannesse kept,
We praise the house and maid,
And surely she is paid:
For we do use before we go
To drop a tester in her shoe.

Upon the mushroome's head,
Our table-cloth we spread,
A grain o' th' finest wheat
Is manchet that we eate:

The pearlie drops of dew we drinke
In akorne-cups fill'd to the brinke.

The tongues of nightingales,
With unctious juyce of snails,
Betwixt two nut-shels stewde

Is meate that's easily chewde;

The braines of rennes, the beards of mice, Will make a feast of wondrous price.

Over the tender grasse,

So lightly we can passe,
The yonge and tender stalke
Nere bowes whereon we walke,

Nor in the morning dew is seene
Over night where we have beene.

The grasse-hopper, gnat, and flie,

Serve for our minstrels three,

And sweetly dance awhile

Till we the time beguile:

And when the moon-calfe 'hides her head,

The glow-worm lights us into bed.

1 A small loaf of fine bread.

F

II

ROBIN GOODFELLOW

From Percy's "Reliques"

ROM Oberon in fairye land,

The king of ghosts and shadowes there, Mad Robin, I, at his command,

Am sent to view the night-sports here.
What revell rout

Is kept about,

In every corner where I go,

I will o'ersee, and merry bee,

And make good sport, with ho, ho, ho!

More swift than lightning can I flye

About this airey welkin soone,

And in a minute's space descrye,

Each thinge that's done belowe the moone. There's not a hag

Or ghost shall wag,

Or cry, ware Goblins! where I go;
But Robin, I, their feates will spy,

And send them home with ho, ho, ho!

Whene'er such wanderers I meete,

As from their night-sports they trudge home;

With counterfeiting voice I greete,

And call them on with me to roame

Thro' woods, thro' lakes,

Thro' bogs, thro' brakes;

Or else, unseene, with them I go,

All in the nicke to play some tricke, And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!

:

Sometimes I meete them like a man;

Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound;

And to a horse I turn me can,

To trip and trot about them round.
But if, to ride,

My back they stride,

More swifte than winde away I go,

O'er hedge and lands, thro' pools and ponds,
I whirry, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When lads and lasses merry be,

With possets and with juncates fine,
Unseen of all the company,

I eat their cakes and sip their wine;
And to make sport,

I snore and snort;

And out the candles I do blow:

The maids I kiss; they shriek-Who's this?

I answer nought but ho! ho! ho!

Yet now and then, the maids to please,
At midnight I card up their wooll;
And while they sleep and take their ease,
With wheel, to threade their flax I pull.
I grind at mill

Their malt up still;

I dress their hemp, I spin their tow:
If any wake, and would me take,
I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When house or harth doth sluttish lye,
I pinch the maidens black and blue:
The bed-clothes from the bedd pull I,
And lay them naked all to view.

'Twixt sleepe and wake

I do them take,