Hunting us hence with hunte's up to the day....
These are two of the seven stanzas of a song richly larded with Shakesperean allusions, to be found in The Diary of Master William Silence.
In his book on English Poesy, Puttenham, who was born about 1520, says that a poet of the name of Gray won the esteem of Henry VIII. and the Duke of Somerset for "making certeine merry ballades, whereof one chiefly was, 'the hunte is up, the hunte is up." Henry VIII., moreover, was himself a versifier, and a musician, though, as I have read, a dull one. Here is the first stanza of one of his poems:
As the holly groweth green,
And never changeth hue,
So I am, ever hath been
Unto my lady true....
which, with another equally surprising in sentiment, may be found in full in that casket of antiquities, "Early English Lyrics, chosen by E. K. Chambers and F. Sidgwick."