Under the title “The Fetching Home of May,” we meet an early ballad-form copy in the Roxburghe Collection, i. 535, printed for J. Wright, junior, dwelling at the upper end of the Old Bailey. It begins “Now _Pan_ leaves piping,” and is in two parts, each containing five verses. Three of these are not represented in the _Antidote_ of 1661. Wm. Chappell, the safest of all guides in such matters, notes that “the publisher [of the broadside] flourished in and after 1635. No clue remains to the authorship.” (_Bd. Soc._ reprint, iii. 311, 1875.) As in the case of the companion-ditty, “Come, Lasses and Lads” (_Westm. Droll._, ii. 80), we may feel satisfied that this lively song was written before the year 1642. No hint of the Puritanic suppression of Maypoles can be discerned in either of them. Such sports were soon afterwards prohibited, and if ballads celebrating their past delights had then been newly written, the author must have yielded to the temptation to gird at the hypocrites and despots who desolated each village green. We cannot regard the _Roxburghe Ballad_ as being superior to the _Antidote_ version: But they mutually help one another in corrections. We note the chief: first verse, So lively _it_ passes; _Good lack_, what paines; 2, _Thus_ they so much; 3 (our 4), Came very _lazily_. It is after the five verses that differences are greatest. Our 6th verse is absent, and our 7th appears as the 8th; with new 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th, which we here give, but print them to match our others: THE FETCHING HOME OF MAY. (_The Second Part._) 6. This Maying so pleased || Most of the fine lasses, That they much desired to fetch in May flowers, For to strew the windows and such like places, Besides they’l have May bows, fit for shady bowers. But most of all they goe || To find where Love doth growe, Each young man knowes ’tis so, || Else hee’s a clowne: For ’tis an old saying, || “There is great joying, When maids go a Maying,” || _They’ll have a greene gowne_. 7. Maidens and young men goe, || As ’tis an order old, For to drink merrily and eat spiced cakes; The lads and the lasses their customs wil hold, For they wil goe walk i’ th’ fields, like loving mates: _Em_ calls for _Mary_, || And _Ruth_ calls for _Sarah_, _Iddy_ calls for _Har[r]y_ || To man them along: _Martin_ calls _Marcy_, || _Dick_ calls for _Debary_, Then they goe lovingly || _All in a throng_. 8. (_Westm. Droll._, 7.) The bright _Apollo_ || Was all the while peeping To see if his _Daphne_ had bin in the throng, And, missing her, hastily downward was creeping, For [_Thetis_] imagined [he] they tarri’d too long. Then all the troope mourned || And homeward returned, For _Cynthia_ scorned || To smile or to frowne: Thus did they gather May || All the long summer’s day, And went at night away, || _With a green gowne_. 9.