And, while they sleep 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 hearth doth sluttish lie,
I pinch the maidens black and blue;
The bed-clothes from the bed pull I,
And lay them naked all to view.
'Twixt sleep 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 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 then I go,

And night by night,

I them affright,

With pinchings, dreams, and ho, ho, ho!

When lazy queens have nought to do,

But study how to cog and lie:
To make debate and mischief too,
'Twixt one another secretly :
I mark their gloze,

And it disclose

To them whom they have wrongèd so:
When I have done,

I get me gone,

And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho!
When men do traps and engines set
In loop-holes, where the vermin creep,
Who from their folds and houses get

Their ducks and geese, and lambs and sheep;
I spy the gin,

And enter in,

And seem a vermin taken so;

But when they there

Approach me near,

I leap out laughing, ho, ho, ho!
By wells and rills and meadows green,
We nightly dance our heyday guise;
And to our fairy king and queen,
We chant our moonlight minstrelsies.
When larks 'gin sing,

Away we fling;

And babes new-born steal as we go;

And elf 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 nights,

The hags and goblins do me know ;
And beldames old

My feats have told,
So Vale, vale; ho, ho, ho!

A NEWSPAPER.

ORGANS that gentlemen play, my boy,
To answer the taste of the day, my boy;
Whatever it be,

They hit on the key,

And pipe in full concert away, my boy.

News from all countries and climes, my boy, Advertisements, essays, and rhymes, my boy, Mix'd up with all sorts

Of flying reports,

And published at regular times, my boy.

Articles able and wise, my boy,

At least in the editor's eyes, my boy,
A logic so grand

That few understand

To what in the world it applies, my boy.

Statistics, reflections, reviews, my boy,
Little scraps to instruct and amuse, my boy,
And lengthy debate

Upon matters of State

For wise-headed folks to peruse, my boy.

The funds as they were and are, my boy,
The quibbles and quirks of the bar, my boy;
And every week

A clever critique

On some rising theatrical star, my boy.

The age of Jupiter's moons, my boy,
The stealing of somebody's spoons, my boy,
The state of the crops,

The style of the fops,

And the wit of the public buffoons, my boy.

List of all physical ills, my boy,
Banish'd by somebody's pills, my boy,
Till you ask with surprise

Why any one dies,

Or what's the disorder that kills, my boy.

Who has got married, to whom, my boy,
Who were cut off in their bloom, my boy,
Who has had birth

On this sorrow-stain'd earth,

And who totters fast to their tomb, my boy.

The price of cattle and grain, my boy,
Directions to dig and to drain, my boy,
But 'twould take me too long

To tell you in song

A quarter of all they contain, my boy.

THE CITIZEN AND THE THIEVES.

From a Pamphlet, published in 1609.

A CITIZEN, for recreation's sake,

To see the country would a journey take
Some dozen miles or very little more;

Taking his leave with friends two months before,
With drinking healths and shaking by the hand,
As he had travell'd to some new-found land.
Well, taking horse, with very much ado,
London he leaveth for a day or two :

And as he rideth, meets upon the way

Such as (what haste soever) bid men stay.

'Sirrah,' says one, 'stand, and your purse deliver, I am a taker, thou must be a giver?

Unto a wood, hard by, they hail him in,
And rifle him unto his very skin.

'Misters,' quoth he, 'pray hear me ere you go;
For you have robb'd me more than you do know,
My horse, in truth, I borrow'd of my brother;
The bridle and the saddle of another;