| |
| WOULD’ST thou know nature in her better part? | |
| Go, search the huts and bordels of the hind; | |
| If they have any, it is rough-made art, | |
| In them you see the naked form of kind; | |
| Haveth your mind a liking of a mind? | 5 |
| Would it know every thing, as it might be? | |
| Would it hear phrase of vulgar from the hind, | |
| Without wiseacre words and knowledge free? | |
| If so, read this, which I disporting penned, | |
| If naught beside, its rhyme may it commend. | 10 |
| |
| Man. | But whither, fair maid, do ye go? | |
| O where do you bend your way? | |
| I will know whither you go, | |
| I will not be answered nay. | |
| Woman. | To Robin and Nell, all down in the dell, | 15 |
| To help them at making of hay. | |
| Man. | Sir Roger, the parson, have hired me there, | |
| Come, come, let us trip it away, | |
| We’ll work and we’ll sing, and we’ll drink of strong beer, | |
| As long as the merry summer’s day. | 20 |
| Woman. | How hard is my doom to wurch! | |
| Much is my woe: | |
| Dame Agnes, who lies in the church | |
| With birlette gold, | |
| With gilded aumeres, strong, untold, | 25 |
| What was she more than me, to be so? | |
| Man. | I see Sir Roger from afar, | |
| Tripping over the lea; | |
| I ask why the loverd’s son | |
| Is more than me. | 30 |
| |
| Sir Roger. | The sultry sun doth hie apace his wain, | |
| From every beam a seed of life do fall; | |
| Quickly scille up the hay upon the plain, | |
| Methinks the cocks beginneth to grow tall. | |
| This is alyche our doom; the great, the small, | 35 |
| Must wither and be dried by deathìs dart. | |
| See! the sweet floweret hath no sweet at all; | |
| It with the rank weed beareth equal part. | |
| The craven, warrior, and the wise be blent, | |
| Alyche to dry away with those they did lament. | 40 |
| |
| Man. | All-a-boon, Sir Priest, all-a-boon! | |
| By your priestship, now say unto me; | |
| Sir Gaufrid the knight, who liveth hard by, | |
| Why should he than me be more great, | |
| In honour, knighthood, and estate? | 45 |
| |
| Sir Roger. | Attourne thine eyes around this hayèd mee; | |
| Carefully look around the chaper dell; | |
| An answer to thy barganette here see, | |
| This withered floweret will a lesson tell; | |
| Arist, it blew, it flourished, and did well, | 50 |
| Looking disdainfully on the neighbour green; | |
| Yet with the deignèd green its glory fell, | |
| Eftsoon it shrank upon the day-burnt plain, | |
| Did not its look, whilèst it there did stand, | |
| To crop it in the bud move some dread hand? | 55 |
| |
| Such is the way of life; the loverd’s ente | |
| Moveth the robber him therefor to slea; | |
| If thou hast ease, the shadow of content, | |
| Believe the truth, there’s none more haile than thee. | |
| Thou workest; well, can that a trouble be? | 60 |
| Sloth more would jade thee than the roughest day. | |
| Could’st thou the hidden part of soulès see, | |
| Thou would’st eftsoon see truth in what I say. | |
| But let me hear thy way of life, and then | |
| Hear thou from me the lives of other men. | 65 |
| |
| Man. | I rise with the sun, | |
| Like him to drive the wain, | |
| And ere my work is done, | |
| I sing a song or twain. | |
| I follow the plough-tail, | 70 |
| With a long jubb of ale. | |
| |
| But of the maidens, oh! | |
| It lacketh not to tell; | |
| Sir Priest might not cry woe, | |
| Could his bull do as well. | 75 |
| I dance the best heiedeygnes, | |
| And foil the wisest feygnes. | |
| |
| On every saint’s high-day | |
| With the minstrel am I seen, | |
| All a-footing it away | 80 |
| With maidens on the green. | |
| But oh! I wish to be more great | |
| In glory, tenure, and estate. | |
| |
| Sir Roger. | Hast thou not seen a tree upon a hill, | |
| Whose unlist branches reachen far to sight? | 85 |
| When furious tempests do the heaven fill, | |
| It shaketh dire, in dole and much affright; | |
| Whilst the dwarf floweret, with humility dight, | |
| Standeth unhurt, unquashèd by the storm. | |
| Such is a picte of life; the man of might | 90 |
| Is tempest-chafed, his woe great as his form; | |
| Thyself, a floweret of a small account, | |
| Wouldst harder feel the wind, as thou didst higher mount. | |
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