And if the house be foul, There we pinch their armes and thighes; But if the house be swept, For we use before we goe, Upon a mushroom's head The brains of nightingales, Is meat that's easily chew'd; The grasshopper, gnat, and fly And so the time beguile : And if the moone doth hide her head, On tops of dewie grasse So nimbly we do passe, The young and tender stalk Ne'er bends when we do walk; Yet in the morning may be seene Anonymous, about the year 1600. THE MERRY PRANKS OF ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW. From Oberon, in fairy land, The king of ghosts and shadowes there, Mad Robin, I, at his command, Am sent to viewe the night-sports here. Is kept about In every corner where I go, I will o'ersee And merrie be, And make good sport with ho, ho, ho! More swift than lightning can I flye About the aery welkin soone, And in a minute's space descrye Each thing 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 frolick it with ho, ho, ho! When men do traps and engines set In loope holes, where the vermine creepe, Who from their foldes and houses get Their duckes and geese, and lambes and sheepe; And enter in, And seeme a vermin taken so; But when they there I leap out laughing ho, ho, ho By wells and rills, in meadowes green, Away we flinge; And babes new-born steale as we go, And shoes in bed We leave instead, And wend us laughing ho, ho, ho! From hag-bred Merlin's time have I Thus nightly revell'd to and fro : And for my prankes, men call me by The name of Robin Good-Fellow. Friends, ghosts, and sprites Who haunt the nightes, The hags and goblins do me know, And beldames old My feates have told, So vale, vale, ho, ho, ho! Anonymous-attributed to BEN JONSON, about 1600. SLAVIC. AN OLD BALLAD, The maiden went for water To the well o'er the meadow away; She there could draw no water, So thick the frost it lay. The mother she grew angry, She had it long to bemoan; "O daughter mine, O daughter mine, I would thou wert a stone !" The maiden's water-pitcher There came one day two lads, Two minstrels young they were; "We've traveled far, my brother, Such a maple we saw nowhere. "Come let us cut a fiddle, One fiddle for me and you, And from the same fine maple, For each one, fiddlesticks two." They cut into the maple Then splashed the blood so red; The lads fell to the ground, So sore were they afraid. Then spake from within the maiden : "Wherefore afraid are you? Cut out of me one fiddle, And for each one fiddlesticks two. "Then go and play right sadly, The lads they went, and sadly |