Down from his table leapt the motley Fool. His bladder bounced from head to ducking head, His crackling laugh rang high,--"Sir John, I danced In February, and the song says May! A fig for all your poets, liars all! Away to Fenchurch Street, lasses and lads, They hold high revel there this May-day morn. Away!" The mad-cap throng echoed the cry. He drove them with his bauble through the door; Then, as the last gay kerchief fluttered out He gave one little sharp sad lingering cry As of a lute-string breaking. He turned back And threw himself along a low dark bench; His jingling cap was crumpled in his fist, And, as he lay there, all along Cheapside The happy voices of his comrades rang:-- Out of the woods we'll dance and sing Under the morning-star of Spring, Into the town with our fresh boughs And knock at every sleeping house, Not sighing, Or crying, Though Love knows no denying! Then, round your summer queen and king, Come, young lovers, dance and sing, Dance and sing! His motley shoulders heaved. I touched his arm, "What ails you, sir?" He raised his thin white face, Wet with the May-dew still. A few stray petals Clung in his tangled hair. He leapt to his feet, "'Twas February, but I danced, boy, danced In May! Can you do this?" Forward he bent Over his feet, and shuffled it, heel and toe, Out of the Mermaid, singing his old song-- A-maying, A-playing, For Love knows no gain-saying! Wisdom trips not? Even so,-- Come, young lovers, trip and go, Trip and go. Five minutes later, over the roaring Strand, "_Chorus!_" I heard him crow, and half the town Reeled into music under his crimson comb. VI BIG BEN Gods, what a hubbub shook our cobwebs out The day that Chapman, Marston and our Ben Waited in Newgate for the hangman's hands. Chapman and Marston had been flung there first For some imagined insult to the Scots In _Eastward Ho_, the play they wrote with Ben. But Ben was famous now, and our brave law Would fain have winked and passed the big man by. The lesser men had straightway been condemned To have their ears cut off, their noses slit. With other tortures. Ben had risen at that! He gripped his cudgel, called for a quart of ale, Then like Helvellyn with his rocky face And mountain-belly, he surged along Cheapside, Snorting with wrath, and rolled into the gaol, To share the punishment.