HARVEST

Sped well, or ill sir, I drink to you on the same: Is your throat clear to help us to sing, hooky, hooky? Hooky, hooky, we have shorn, and we have bound, And we have brought harvest home to town. Answer? why friend, I am no tapster, to say, A non, anon, sir: but leave you to molest me, goodman tawny leaves, for fear (as the proverb says, leave is light) so I mow off all your leaves with my sith. Hooky, hooky, if you were not my Lord, I would say you lie. First and foremost you say I am a Grocer. A Grocer is a citizen: I am no citizen, therefore no Grocer. A hoorder up of grain: that's false; for not so much but my el bows eat wheat every time I lean on them. A Carl: that is as much to say, as a conycatcher of good fellowship. For that one word, you shall pledge me a carouse: eat a spoonful of the curd to allay your choler. My mates and fellows, sing no more, Merry, merry: but weep out a lame ̄ table hooky, hooky, and let your Sickles cry, Sick, sick, and very sick, & sick, and for the time; for Harvest your master is abused without reason or rhyme. I have no conscience I; I'll come nearer to you, and yet I am no scab, nor no louse. Can you make proof where ever I sold away my conscience, or pawned it? do you know who would buy it, or lend any money upon it? I think I have given you the pose; blow your nose, master constable. But to say that I impoverish the earth, that I rob the man in the moon, that I take a purse on the top of Pauls steeple; by this straw and third I swear, you are no gentle man, no proper man, no honest man, to make me sing, Oh man in desperation. I, I, nought seek, nought have: and ill husband is the first step to a knave. You object I feed none at my board. I am sure, if you were a hog, you would never say so: for, surreverence of their worships, they feed at my stable, table, every day. I keep good hospitality for hens & geese; Gleaners are oppressed with heavy burdens of my bounty. They rake me, and eat me to the very bones, till there be no thing left but gravel and stones, and yet I give no alms, but devour all. They say when a man cannot hear well, you hear with your harvest ears: but if you herd with your harvest ears, that is, with the ears of corn, which my alms cart scatters, they would tell you, that I am the very poor men box of pity, that there are more holes of liberality open in harvest's heart, then in a sive, or a dust-boxe. Suppose you were a craftsman, or and Artificer, and should come to buy corn of me, you should have bushels of me, not Like the Bakers loaf, that should weigh but six ounces, but usury for your money, thousands for one: what would you have more? Eat me out of my apparel, if you will, if you suspect me for a miser. Hay, Gods plenty, which was so sweet and so good, that when I ierted my whip, and said to my horses but Hay, they would go as they were mad. I sing hay-ree, that is, hay and rye: meaning, that they shall have hay and rye their belly-fulls, if they will draw hard; So we say, uva, hay, when they go out of the way: meaning, that they shall want hay, if they will not do as they should do. My oats grew Like a cup of beer that makes the brewer rich: my rye Like a Cavalier, that wears a huge feather in his cap, but hath no courage in his heart; had a long stalk, a goodly husk, but nothing so great a kernel as it was wont: my barley, even as many a novice is crossebitten, as soon as ever he peeps out of the shell, so was it frostbitten in the blade, yet picked up his crumbs again afterwards, and bade, Fill pot, hostess, in spite of a deer year. As for my Peas and my Fetches, they are famous, and not to be spoken of. Will you make good your words, that we want no fetches? Then fetch us a cloak-bag, to carry away your self in. Rest from my labours, and let the husbandmen sing of my praise? Nay, we do not mean to rest so; by your leave, we'll have a largess amongst you, ever we partly. No, that there is not, goodman Lundgis: I see, charity waxes cold, and I think this house be her habitatio ̄ , for it is not very hight; we were as good even put up our pipes, and sing Merry, merry, for we shall get no money. Merry, merry, merry, cheery, cheery, cheery, Trowle the black bowl to me: Heigh derry, derry, with a poop and a lerrie, I'll trowle it again to thee: Hooky, bookie, we have shorn and we have bound, And we have brought harvest home to town.