A Song & Jig For Good Measure

When Lambkins skip, and apples are growing,
Grass is green, and roses ablow,
When pidgeons coo, and cattle are lowing,
Mist lies white in valleys below.
Why should we be all the day toiling?
Lads and lasses, along with me!
Done with drudgery, dust and moiling
Haste away to the greenwood tree.

The cows are milked, the team’s in the stable,
Work is over, and play begun,
Ye farmer lads all lusty and able,
Ere the moon rises, we’ll have our fun,
Why should we be all the day toiling?

There’s Jack o’lantern lustily dancing
In the marsh with flickering flame,
And Daddy-long-legs, spinning and prancing,
Moth and midge are doing the same.

So Bet and Prue, and Dolly and Celie,
With milking pail ‘tis time to have done.
And Ralph and Phil, and Robin and Willie,
The threshng flail must sleep with the sun.

Upon the green beginneth our pleasure,
Whilst we dance we merrily sing.
A country dance, a jig, and a measure,
Hand in hand we go in a ring.

O sweet it is to foot on the clover,
Ended work and revel begun.
Aloft the planets never give over,
Dancing, circling round the sun.

So Ralph and Phil, and Robin and Willie,
Take your partners each of you now.
And Bet and Prue, and Dolly and Celie,
Make a curtsey; lads! make a bow.

English Sketches
 
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English Sketches

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