Anonymous Elizabethan And Jacobean Poems
Tom 0' Bedlam's Song
From the hagg and hungry goblinhaggard
That into rags would rend ye,
All the spirits that stand by the naked man
In the Book of Moons- defend ye!
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from your selves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon.
While I do sing "anv food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink or clothing,
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.
Of thirty bare years have I
Twice twenty been enraged,mad
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly caged.confinement, prison
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam,
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whip's ding-dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty.
And now I sing "anv food, any feeding, ...
With a thought I took for Maudlin
And a cruse of cockle pottage,pitcher / shellfish / soup
With a thing thus tall, sky bless you all,
I befell into this dotage.
I slept not since the Conquest,
Till then I never waked,
Till the roguish boy of love where I layCupid
Me found and stripped me naked.
And now I sing "anv food) any feeding, ...
When I short have shorn my sour face
And swigged my horny barrel,
In an oaken inn I pound my skin
As a suit of gilt apparel.
The moon's my constant Mistress,
And the lowly owl my marrow,
The flaming Drake and the Nightcrow makemale duck
Me music to my sorrow.
While I do sing "any food, any feeding, ...
The palsy plagues my pulses
When I prigg their pigs or pullen,steal / chicken
Your culvers take, or matchless makewood pigeons
Your Chanticleare,> or sullen.
When I want provant, with Humfryfood
I sup,7 and when benighted,
I repose in Paul's with waking souls,
Yet never am affrighted.
But I do sing "any food, any feeding, ...
I know more than Apollo,
For oft, when hee lies sleeping,
I see the stars at bloody wars
In the wounded welkin weeping;sky
The moon embrace her shepherd,
And the queen of Love her warrior,
While the first doth horn the star of morn,
And the next the heavenly Farrier.9
While I do sing "any food, any feeding, ...
The Gipsy Snap and Pedro!
Are none of Tom's comrados.
The punk I scorn and the cut purse sworn
And the roaring boys bravado.
The meek, the white, the gentle,
Me handle, touch, and spare not,
But those that cross Tom Rynosseros
Do what the panther dare not.
Although I sing "any food, any feeding, ...
With an host of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear, and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourneytake part in a tournament
Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end.
Me thinks it is no journey.
Yet will I sing "any food, any feeding, ...
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