Oh, that my lungs could bleat like butter’d Pease; But bleating of my lungs hath caught the itch, And are as mangy as the Irish seas That offer wary windmills to the Rich. I grant that Rainbowes being lull’d asleep, Snort like a woodknife in a Lady’s eyes; Which makes her grieve to see a pudding creep, For Creeping puddings only please the wise. Not that a hard-row’d herring should presume To swing a tyth pig in a Cateskin purse; For fear the hailstons which did fall at Rome, By lesning of the fault should make it worse. For ’tis most certain Winter woolsacks grow From geese to swans if men could keep them so. Till that the sheep shorn Planets gave the hint To pickle pancakes in Geneva print. Some men there were that did suppose the skie Was made of Carbonado’d Antidotes; But my opinion is, a Whale’s left eye, Need not be coynéd all King Harry groates. The reason’s plain, for Charon’s Westerne barge Running a tilt at the Subjunctive mood, Beckoned to Bednal Green, and gave him charge To fasten padlockes with Antartic food. The End will be the Mill ponds must be laded, To fish for white pots in a Country dance; So they that suffered wrong and were upbraded Shall be made friends in a left-handed trance. A charming lyric by Bishop Corbet is: _FAREWELL TO THE FAIRIES_ “Farewell, rewards and fairies!” Good housewives now may say, For now foul sluts in dairies Do fare as well as they. And, though they sweep their hearths no less Than maids were wont to do, Yet who of late, for cleanliness, Finds sixpence in her shoe? Lament, lament, old Abbeys, The fairies lost command! They did but change priests’ babies, But some have changed your land; And all your children stoln from thence Are now grown Puritans; Who live as changelings ever since, For love of your domains. At morning and at evening both, You merry were and glad, So little care of sleep or sloth These pretty ladies had; When Tom came home from labour, Or Cis to milking rose, Then merrily went their tabor, And nimbly went their toes. Witness those rings and roundelays Of theirs, which yet remain, Were footed in Queen Mary’s days On many a grassy plain; But, since of late Elizabeth, And later James, came in, They never danced on any heath As when the time hath been. By which we note the fairies Were of the old profession, Their songs were Ave-Maries, Their dances were procession: But now, alas! they all are dead, Or gone beyond the seas; Or further for religion fled, Or else they take their ease.