There profit and command
With pleasure I partake,
Yet do not hawks and dogs
My sole companions make.
I rule, but not oppress;
End quarrels, not maintain;
See towns, but dwell not there
To abridge my charge or train.
The Wife.
I do not visit oft,
Nor many when I do,
I tell my mind to few
And that in counsel too.
I seem not sick in health,
Nor sullen but in sorrow;
I care for somewhat else
Than what to wear to-morrow.
The Widow.
Though I no more will have,
I must not love disdain;
Penelope her self
Did suitors entertain.
And yet to draw on such
As are of best esteem,
Nor younger than I am
Nor richer will I seem.”
Page [41]. “I have house and land in Kent.”—This admirable song has been frequently reprinted. Miss De Vaynes, in her very valuable “Kentish Garland” (i., 142), observes:—“We have met with no other song in the Kentish dialect except Jan Ploughshare’s” (printed on p. 372, vol. i., of the “Garland”). Rimbault in his “Little Book of Songs and Ballads” (1851), gives the following lines from an old MS. (temp. Henry VIII.):—
“Joan, quoth John, when will this be?
Tell me when wilt thou marry me,
My corn and eke my calf and rents,
My lands and all my tenements?
Say, Joan, quoth John, what wilt thou do?
I cannot come every day to woo?”