Yet now and then, the maids to please,
At midnight I card up their wooll;
And while they sleepe, and take their ease,
With wheel to threads their flax I pull.
I grind at mill 55
Their malt up still;
I dress their hemp, I spin their tow.
If any 'wake,
And would me take,
I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho! 60
When house or harth doth sluttish lye,[416]
I pinch the maidens blacke and blue;
The bed-clothes from the bedd pull I,
And lay them naked all to view.
'Twixt sleepe and wake, 65
I do them take,
And on the key-cold floor them throw.
If out they cry,
Then forth I fly,
And loudly laugh out, ho, ho, ho! 70
When any need to borrowe ought,
We lend them what they do require;
And for the use demand we nought;
Our owne is all we do desire.
If to repay, 75
They do delay,
Abroad amongst them then I go,
And night by night,
I them affright
With pinchings, dreames, and ho, ho, ho! 80
When lazie queans have nought to do,
But study how to cog and lye;
To make debate and mischief too,
'Twixt one another secretlye:
I marke their gloze, 85
And it disclose,
To them whom they have wronged so;
When I have done,
I get me gone,
And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho! 90
When men do traps and engins set
In loop-holes, where the vermine creepe,
Who from their foldes and houses, get
Their duckes and geese, and lambes and sheepe:
I spy the gin, 95
And enter in,
And seeme a vermine taken so;
But when they there
Approach me neare,
I leap out laughing, ho, ho, ho! 100
By wells and rills,[417] in meadowes greene,
We nightly dance our hey-day guise;[418]
And to our fairye king, and queene,
We chant our moon-light minstrelsies.
When larks 'gin sing, 105
Away we fling;
And babes new borne steal as we go,
And else in bed,
We leave instead,
And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho! 110
From hag-bred Merlin's time have I
Thus nightly revell'd to and fro:
And for my pranks men call me by
The name of Robin Good-fellow.
Fiends, ghosts, and sprites, 115
Who haunt the nightes,
The hags and goblins do me know;
And beldames old
My feates have told;
So Vale, Vale; ho, ho, ho! 120
FOOTNOTES:
[416] [Ver. 61. this begins the second part in the Roxburghe copy.]
[417] [gills=rivulets, Roxb. copy.]