Robin Good-fellow

From Oberon, in fairye land,
The king of ghosts and shadowes there,
Mad Robin I, at his command,
Am sent to viewe the night-sports here.
What revell rout
Is kept about,
In every corner where I go,
I will o'ersee,
And merry bee,
And make good sport, with ho, ho, ho!

More swift than lightening can I flye
About this aery welkin soone,
And, in a minutes space, descrye
Each thing that's done belowe the moone,
There's not a hag
Or ghost shall wag,
Or cry, ware Goblins! where I go;
But Robin I
Their feates will spy,
And send them home, with ho, ho, ho!

Whene'er such wanderers I meete,
As from their night-sports they trudge home;
With counterfeiting voice I greete
And call them on, with me to roame
Thro' woods, thro' lakes,
Thro' bogs, thro' brakes;
Or else, unseene, with them I go,
All in the nicke
To play some tricke
And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!

Sometimes I meete them like a man;
Sometimes, an ox, sometimes, a hound;
And to a horse I turn me can;
To trip and trot about them round.
But if, to ride,
My backe they stride,
More swift than wind away I go,
Ore hedge and lands,
Thro' pools and ponds
I whirry, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When lads and lasses merry be,
With possets and with juncates fine;
Unseene of all the company,
I eat their cakes 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,
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
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!

When house or harth doth sluttish lye,
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,
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!

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,
They do delay,
Abroad amongst them then I go,
And night by night,
I them affright
With pinchings, dreames, and ho, ho, ho!

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,
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!

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,
And enter in,
And seeme a vermine taken so;
But when they there
Approach me neare,
I leap out laughing, ho, ho, ho!

By wells and rills, in meadowes greene,
We nightly dance our hey-day guise;
And to our fairye king, and queene,
We chant our moon-light minstrelsies.
When larks 'gin sing,
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!

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,
Who haunt the nightes,
The hags and goblins do me know;
And beldames old
My feates have told;
So Vale, Vale; ho, ho, ho!