I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest things have seen,
Oh, things without compare!
Such sights again cannot be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake° or fair.
At Charing Cross, hard by the way
Where we (thou know’st) do sell our hay,
There is a house with stairs;
And there did I see coming down
Such folk as are not in our town,
Forty, at least, in pairs.
Amongst the rest, one pest’lent fine
(His beard no bigger, though, than thine)
Walked on before the rest.
Our landlord looks like nothing to him;
The king (God bless him!), ‘twould undo him
Should he go still° so dressed.
At course-a-park,’ without all doubt,
He should have first been taken out
By all the maids i’ th’ town,
Though lusty Roger there had been,
Or little George upon the Green,
Or Vincent of the Crown.
But wot° you what? the youth was going
To make an end of all his wooing;
The parson for him stayed.
Yet by his leave, for all his haste,
He did not so much wish all past,
Perchance, as did the maid.
The maid (and thereby hangs a tale),
For such a maid no Whitsun-ale Could ever yet produce;
No grape, that’s kindly ripe, could be
So round, so plump, so soft as she,
Nor half so full of juice.
Her finger was so small the ring
Would not stay on, which they did bring;
It was too wide a peck:
And to say truth (for out it must),
It looked like the great collar (just)
About our young colt’s neck.
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they feared the light;
But oh, she dances such a way,
No sun upon an Easter day
Is half so fine a sight!
He would have kissed her once or twice,
But she would not, she was so nice,’
She would not do ‘t in sight;
And then she looked as who should say,
“I will do what I list today;
And you shall do ‘t at night.”
Her cheeks so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison
(Who sees them is undone),
For streaks of red were mingled there,
Such as are on a Catherine pear
(The side that’s next the sun).
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