Through woods, through lakes, Through bogs, through brakes, O'er bush and briar, 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 trot 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!

Yet, now and then, the maids to please,

I card, at midnight, up their wool;
And, while they fleep, fnort, fart, and feafe,
With wheel to thread their flax I pull;
I grind at mill

Their malt up ftill,

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 fluttish lie,

I pinch the maidens black and blue;
And from the bed the bed-clothes I
Pull off, and lay them nak'd to view;
'Twixt fleep 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 I, ho, ho, ho!

When any need to borrow ought,
We lend them what they do require;
And for the ufe demand we nought;
Our own is all we do defire:

With pinching, dreams, and ho, ho, ho!

When

V

When lazy queans have nought to do,

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

And it difclofe

To them that they have wronged fo;
When I have done

I get me gone,

And leave them fcolding, ho, ho, ho!

When men do traps and engines fet

In loop-holes, where the vermin creep,
Who from their folds and houses fet

Their ducks and geefe, and lambs and fheep,
I spy the gin,

And enter in,

And feem a vermin taken fo;

But when they there

Approach me near,

I leap out laughing, ho, ho, ho!

By wells and gills, in meadows green,

We nightly dance our hey-day guife;

And to our Fairy king and queen

We chant our moonlight minstrelfies:
When larks 'gin fing

Away we fling,

From hag-bred Merlins time have I

Thus nightly revel'd to and fro; And, for my pranks, men call me by The name of Robin Good-fellòw: Fiends, ghofts, and fprites, That haunt the nights,

The hags and goblins do me know;

And belldames old

My feats have told :

So Vale, Vale; ho, ho, ho!

SONG LVIII.

THE GRASSHOPPER.

FROM ANACREON.

BY ABRAHAM COWLEY ES Q

APPY infect! what can be

Hin happinefs compar'd to thee?

Fed with nourishment divine,

The dewy mornings gentle wine.
Nature waits upon thee ftill,
And thy verdant cup does fill;
'Tis fill'd whereever thou doft tread,
Natures felf's thy Ganymede.

Thou doft drink, and dance, and fing;
Happier than the happieft king!
All the fields, which thou doft fee,
All the plants belong to thee;
All that fummer hours produce,
Fertile made with early juice.

0.

Man

Man for thee does fow and plow;
Farmer he, and landlord thou!
Thou doft innocently enjoy;
Nor does thy luxury destroy;
The fhepherd gladly heareth thee,
More harmonious than he.

Thee country hinds with gladness hear,
Prophet of the ripen'd year!

Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire;
Phoebus is himself thy fire.

To thee, of all things upon earth,
Life is no longer than thy mirth.
Happy infect! happy thou

Doft neither age nor winter know:

But, when thou'ft drunk, and danc'd, and fung
Thy fill, the flowery leaves among,

(Voluptuous, and wife withall,

Epicurean animal!)

Sated with thy fummer feaft,

Thou retir'ft to endless reft.

SONG LIX.

THE HUNTING OF THE HARE.

ONGS of fhepherds, in ruftical roundelays,

SONGS

Form'd in fancy, and whistled on reeds,

Sung to folace young nymphs upon holidays,
Are too unworthy for wonderful deeds.