The mad-merry pranks of Robin Goodfellow.  
To the tune of Dulcina.  

 

FRom Oberon in Fairy Land  
the King of Ghosts and shadows there,  
Mad Robin I at his command,  
am sent to view the night-sports here.  
What revel rout  
Is kept about  
In every corner where I go,  
I will over see.  
And merry be,  
And make good sport with ho ho ho.   

More swift than lightning can I fly,  
and round about this airy welkin soon,  
And in a minute's space descry  
each thing that's done beneath the Moon:  
There's not a Hag  
Nor Ghost shall wag.  
Nor cry Goblin where I do go,  
But Robin I  
Their seats will spy  
And 〈◊〉 them home with ho ho ho.   

If any wanderers I meet  
That from their night sports do trudge home  
With counterfeiting voice I greet,  
and cause them on with me to roam  
Through woods▪ through lakes,  
Through bogs, through brakes  
o'er bush and brier with them I go,  
I call upon  
Them to come on,  
And wend me laughing ho ho ho.   

Sometimes I meet them like a man,  
sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound,  
And to a horse I turn me can,  
to trip and troth about them round.  
But if to ride  
My back they stride,  
More swift than wind away I go,  
o'er hedge and lands,  
Through pools and ponds,  
I whirry laughing ho ho ho.   

When Lads and Lasses merry be,  
With possets and with junkets fine,  
Unséene of all the Company,  
I eat their cates and sip their wine:  
and to make sport,  
I fart and snort,  
And out the candles I do blow,  
The maids I kiss,  
They shrieke who's this  
I answer nought but ho ho ho.   

Yet now and then the maids to please,  
A card at midnight up their wool;  
And while they sleep, snort, fart, and 〈◊〉,  
with wheel to threads their hare I pull:  
I grind at Mill  
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.    

The second part, To the same tune.  
 

When house or hearth doth sluttish lie,  
I pinch the Maids there black & blue,  
And from the bed the bedcloathes I  
pull off, and lay them naked to view:  
'twixt sleep, and wake  
I do them take  
And on the key cold floor them throw,  
If out they cry  
Then forth fly I,  
And loudly laugh I ho ho ho.   

When any need to borrow aught,  
we lend them what they do require.  
And for the use demand we nought,  
our own is all we do desire:  
If to repay  
They do delay  
Abroad amongst them than I go,  
And night by night  
I them affright  
With pinching, dreams, and ho ho ho.   

When lazy queans have naught to do,  
but studybate and mischief too  
'twixt one another secretly:  
I mark their gloze  
And do disclose  
To them that they had wronged so,  
When I have done  
I get me gone  
And leave them scolding ho ho ho.   

When men do traps and engines set  
in loopholes where the vermin creep,  
That from their folds and houses set  
their ducks and geese, their lambs and sheep,  
I spy the gin  
And enter in,  
And seems a vermin taken so  
But when they there  
approach me near  
I leap out laughing ho ho ho.   

By Wells and Gils in meadows green  
we nightly dance our heyday guise,  
And to our fairy king and queen  
we chant our moonlight harmonies  
When larks gi'en sing  
Away we fling.  
And babes new borne steal as we go,  
An elf in bed  
We leave in stead,  
And wend us laughing ho ho ho.   

From Hag-bred Merlin's time have I  
thus nightly reveld to and fro:  
And for my pranks men call me by  
the name of Robin Goodfellow:  
Fiends, ghosts, and spirits  
That haunt the nights,  
The Hags and Goblins do me know,  
And Beldames old  
My feats have told,  
So Vale. Vale, ho ho ho.    
FINIS.   

London, Printed for H. G.