Wander.

TOM O’BEDLAM

From the hag and hungry goblin

That into rags would rend ye,

The spirit that stands by the naked man

In the Book of Moons defend ye,

That of your five sound senses,

You never be forsaken,

Nor wander from yourselves with Tom

Abroad to beg your bacon,

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink, or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Of thirty bare years have I

Twice twenty been enragèd,

And of forty been three times fifteen

In durance soundly cagèd

On the lordly lofts of Bedlam

With stubble soft and dainty,

Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding dong                            

With wholesome hunger plenty,

And now I sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink, or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.

With a thought I took for Maudlin                         

And a cruse of cockle pottage,                                

With a thing thus tall, sky bless you all,

I befell into this dotage.

I slept not since the Conquest,

Till then I never wakèd,

Till the roguish boy of love where I lay

Me found and stripped me naked.

And now I sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink, or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.

When I short have shorn my sow’s face

And swigged by horny barrel,                                              

In an oaken inn I pound my skin

As a suit of gilt apparel;

The moon’s my constant mistress

And the lonely owl my marrow;                                              

The flaming drake and the night crow make                  

Me music to my sorrow.

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink, or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.

The palsy> plagues my pulses                                      

When I prig> your pigs or pullen,                                

Your culvers take, or matchless make                                      

Your Chanticleer or Sullen.                                                  

When I want provant with Humphrey                              

I sup, and when benighted,

I repose in Paul’s with waking souls                         

Yet never am affrighted.

But I do sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink, or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.

I know more than Apollo,

For oft when he lies sleeping

I see the stars at bloody wars

In the wounded welkin weeping;

The moon embrace her shepherd,

And the Queen of Love her warrior,

While the first doth horn the star of morn,

And the next the heavenly Farrier.

                                               

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink, or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.

The gypsies, Snap and Pedro,

Are none of Tom’s comradoes,

The punk I scorn and the cutpurse> sworn,                          

And the roaring boy’s bravadoes.                                   

The meek, the white, the gentle

Me handle, touch, and spare not;

But those that cross Tom Rynosseross

Do what the panther dare not.

Although I sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink, or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.

With an host of furious fancies

Whereof I am commander,

With a burning spear and a horse of air,

To the wilderness I wander.

By a knight of ghosts and shadows,

I summoned am to a tourney

Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end:

Methinks it is no journey.

Yet I will sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink, or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Anonymous