1

Lament, lament, old abbies,

The Faries lost command;

They did but change priests babies,
But some have changd your land:

And all your children sprung from thence

Are now growne Puritanes ;

Who live as changelings ever since

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,

So little care of sleepe or sloth

These prettie ladies had;

When Tom came home from labour,

Or Ciss to milking rose,

Then merrily merrily went theyre tabor,

And nimbly went theyre toes.

Wittness those rings and roundelayes Of theirs, which yet remaine,

Were footed in queene Maries dayes

On many a grassy playne;

But since of late, Elizabeth,

And later, James came in,

They never daunc'd on any heath
As when the time hath bin.

By which wee note the Faries
Were of the old profession;

Theyre songs were Ave Maryes;
Theyre daunces were procession:

But

now, alas! they all are dead,

Or gone beyond the seas;

Or farther for religion fled,

Or elce they take theyre ease.

A tell-tale in theyre company
They never could endure,
And whoe so kept not secretly
Theyre mirth was punisht sure;
It was a just and christian deed

To pinch such blacke and blew :
O how the common welth doth need
Such justices as you!

Now they have left our quarters
A register they have,

Who looketh to theyre charters,

A man both wise and grave;
An hundred of they re merry prancks

By one that I could name

Are kept in store, conn twenty thanks

To William for the same.

I marvell who his cloake would turne

When Pucke had led him round',

Or where those walking fires would burne,
Where Cureton would be found;

How Broker would appeare to be,

For whom this age doth mourne ;

But that theyre spiritts live in thee,
In thee, old William Chourne.

To William Chourne of Stafford shire
Give laud and prayses due,

Who every meale can mend your cheare
With tales both old and true:

To William all give audience,

And pray yee for his noddle,

For all the Faries evidence

Were lost, if that were addle.

↑ The belief that the turning of the cloak, or glove, or any garment, solved the benighted traveller from the spell of the Fairies, is alluded to in the Iter Boreale, (see p. 191,) and is still retained in some of the western counties.

A NON SEQUITUR.

(From "Wit Restored," 8vo. 1658.)

MARKE! how the lanterns clowd mine eyes,
See where a moon-drake 'gins to rise ;
Saturne crawls much like an iron catt,
To see the naked moone in a slipshott hatt.
Thunder-thumping toadstools crock the pots
To see the mermaids tumble;

Leather cat-a-mountaines shake their heels,

To heare the gosh-hawke grumble.

The rustic threed

Begins to bleed,

And cobwebs elbows itches;

The putrid skyes

Eat mulsacke pyes,

Backed up in logicke breches.