| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | Let the Bells Ring, and Let the Boys Sing | | By John Fletcher (1579–1625) |
| | | LET the bells ring, and let the boys sing, | |
| The young lasses skip and play; | |
| Let the cups go round, till round goes the ground; | |
| Our learned old vicar will stay. | |
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| Let the pig turn merrily, merrily, ah! | 5 |
| And let the fat goose swim; | |
| For verily, verily, verily, ah! | |
| Our vicar this day shall be trim. | |
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| The stewed cock shall crow, cock-a-loodle-loo, | |
| A loud cock-a-loodle shall he crow; | 10 |
| The duck and the drake shall swim in a lake | |
| Of onions and claret below. | |
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| Our wives shall be neat, to bring in our meat | |
| To thee our most noble adviser; | |
| Our pains shall be great, and bottles shall sweat | 15 |
| And we ourselves will be wiser. | |
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| We’ll labour and swink, we’ll kiss and we’ll drink, | |
| And tithes shall come thicker and thicker; | |
| We’ll fall to our plough, and get children enow, | |
| And thou shalt be learnèd old vicar. | 20 | | | |
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