| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | The Beggars’ Holiday | | By John Fletcher (1579–1625) |
| | | CAST 1 our caps and cares away: | |
| This is beggars’ holiday! | |
| At the crowning of our king, | |
| Thus we ever dance and sing. | |
| In the world look out and see, | 5 |
| Where so happy a prince as he? | |
| Where the nation live so free, | |
| And so merry as do we? | |
| Be it peace, or be it war, | |
| Here at liberty we are, | 10 |
| And enjoy our ease and rest: | |
| To the field we are not pressed; | |
| Nor are called into the town, | |
| To be troubled with the gown. | |
| Hang all officers, we cry, | 15 |
| And the magistrate too, by! | |
| When the subsidy’s increased, | |
| We are not a penny sessed; | |
| Nor will any go to law | |
| With the beggar for a straw. | 20 |
| All which happiness, he brags, | |
| He doth owe unto his rags. | |
| | | Note 1. From Beggars’ Bush, act ii. sc. 1, 1622. This song is the key-note of exuberant outlawry and adventure to which the play holds. [back] | | |
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