And if the house be foul
With platter, dish, or bowl,
Upstairs we nimbly creep,
And find the sluts asleep;
There we pinch their arms and thighs--
None escapes, nor none espies.
But if the house be swept,
And from uncleanness kept,
We praise the household maid,
And duly she is paid;
For we use, before we go,
To drop a tester in her shoe.
Upon a mushroom's head
Our tablecloth we spread;
A grain of rye or wheat
Is manchet, which we eat;
Pearly drops of dew we drink,
In acorn cups, fil'd to the brink.
The brains of nightingales,
With unctuous fat of snails,
Between two cockles stew'd,
Is meat that's easily chew'd;
Tails of worms, and marrow of mice,
Do make a dish that's wondrous nice.
The grasshopper, gnat, and fly,
Serve us for our minstrelsy;
Grace said, we dance a while,
And so the time beguile;
And if the moon doth hide her head,
The glow-worm lights us home to bed.
On tops of dewy grass
So nimbly do we pass,
The young and tender stalk
Ne'er bends when we do walk;
Yet in the morning may be seen
Where we the night before have been.
_Anonymous._
A BUSY DAY
The bluff March wind set out from home
Before the peep of day,
But nobody seemed to be glad he had come,
And nobody asked him to stay.
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