At threading-needles* we repine, We scorn cutting purses; Over high ways, over low, And over stones and gravel, Oh that all the world were mad! And brave girls keep a-prancing; And cuckolds, though no horns be spied, Welcome, poet to our ging !† Make rhymes, we'll give thee reason, * An old pastime. + Gang. See Note, p. 144. THE GIPSY ROUT. COME, follow your leader, follow, Our convoy be Mars and Apollo ; Our knackers are the fifes and drums, Horsemen we need not fear, Our knackers are the shot that fly, If once the great ordnance play, Scorn can but basely strike; Then let our armies join and sing, And pit-a-pat make our knackers ring. Arm, arm! what bands are those? They cannot be sure our foes; For since they pleased to view our sight, A council of war let's call, Whose gates of love being open thrown, THE DRAMATISTS. 12 THY THE GIPSY'S OATH. HY best hand lay on this turf of grass, There thy heart lies, vow not to pass From us two years for sun nor snow, For hill nor dale, howe'er winds blow; Vow the hard earth to be thy bed, With her green cushions under thy head; Flower-banks or moss to be thy board, Water thy wine-and drink like a lord. Kings can have but coronations; We are as proud of gipsy fashions; Dance, sing, and in a well-mixed border, Close this new brother of our order. What we get with us come share, Dance, sing, and in a well-mixed border Set foot to foot; those garlands hold, Vow as these flowers themselves entwine, You must each night embracing meet, To none but you her leaves unfold; Wake she or sleep, your eyes so charm, [pairs. When kisses are fairings, and hearts meet in THE GIPSY LIFE. BRA RAVE Don, cast your eyes on our gipsy fashions: In our antique hey de guize* we go beyond all nations; Plump Dutch at us grutch, so do English, so do French; He that lopest on the ropes, show me such another wench. We no camels have to show, nor elephant with growt‡ head; We can dance, he cannot go, because the beast is corn fed; No blind bears shedding tears, for a collier's whipping; Apes nor dogs, quick as frogs, over cudgels skipping. Jacks-in-boxes, nor decoys, puppets, nor such poor things, Nor are we those roaring boys that cozen fools with gilt rings; § For an ocean, not such a motion as the city Nineveh, Dancing, singing, and fine ringing, you these sports shall hear and see. *A country dance. † Leaps. + Great. § Ring-dropping, a gulling trick, which consisted in dropping a paper of brass rings, washed over with gold, on the pavement, and picking it up in the presence of a person likely to be swindled into the purchase of them. It is one of the cheats upon countrymen described by Sir John Fielding, in the last century, in his Extracts from the Penal Laws, and is still practised in the streets of London. BEN JONSON, FLETCHER, AND MIDDLETON. THE WIDOW. [Acted about 1616. First printed 1652.] THE THIEVES' SONG. HOW round the world goes, and every thing that's in it! The tides of gold and silver ebb and flow in a minute: From the usurer to his sons, there a current swiftly runs; From the sons to queans in chief, from the gallant to the thief; From the thief unto his host, from the host to husband men; From the country to the court; and so it comes to us again. How round the world goes, and every thing that's in it! The tides of gold and silver ebb and flow in a minute. THOMAS DEKKER. [AN industrious dramatist in the reign of James I., chiefly distinguished by having been engaged in a literary quarrel with Ben Jonson, who satirized him under the name of Crispinus, an indignity for which Dekker took ample revenge in his Satiro-mastix; or, the Untrussing of a Humorous Poet. Dekker must not be estimated from Jonson's character of him. He wrote a great number of plays, and was joined in several by Webster, Ford, and others. His pieces are remarkably unequal. His plots are not always well chosen, and are generally careless in construction. But in occasional scenes he rises to an unexpected height of power, and exhibits a range of fancy that fairly entitles him to take rank with the majority of his contemporaries.] |