For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam,
Ten thousand miles I've traveled.
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes,
For to save her shoes from gravel
To find my Tom of Bedlam
ten thousand years I'll travel,
Mad Maudlin goes with dirty toes
to save her shoes from gravel.
Yet will I sing bonny boys,
bonny mad boys,
Bedlam boys are bonny;
they still go bare
and live by the air,
and want no drink nor money.
I now repent that ever
poor Tom was so distain'd,
my wits are lost since I him crossed,
which makes me thus go chain'd.
Yet will I sing......
My staff hath murder'd giants,
my bag a long knife carries,
to cut mince pies from children's thights,
with which I feed the fairies.
Yet will I sing......
I went to Pluto's kitchen,
to beg some food one morning,
and there I got souls piping hot,
with which the spits were turning.
Yet will I sing......
Then took I up a cauldron
where boiled ten thousand harlots,
'twas full of flame, yet I drank the same
to the health of all such varlets.
Yet will I sing......
A spirit hot as lightning,
did in that journey guide me,
the sun did shake, and the moon pale quake,
as soon as ever they spied me.
Yet will I sing......
No gipsy, slut or doxy
shall wind my mad Tom from me,
we'll sleep all night, and with stars fight:
the fray will well become me.
Yet will I sing......
And when that I have beaten
the man in the moon to powder,
his dog I'll take, and him I'll make
as could not Daemon louder.
Yet will I sing......
---
From the hagg and hungrie goblin
That into raggs would rend ye,
And the spirit that stands by the naked man
In the Book of Moones - defend ye!
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from your selves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon.
(Chorus; sung after every verse)
While I doe sing "any foode, any feeding,
Feedinge, drinke or clothing,"
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.
Of thirty bare years have I
Twice twenty been enraged,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly caged.
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam,
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding-dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty.
With a thought I took for Maudlin
And a cruse of cockle pottage,
With a thing thus tall, skie blesse you all,
I befell into this dotage.
I slept not since the Conquest,
Till then I never waked,
Till the roguish boy of love where I lay
Me found and stript me naked.
When I short have shorne my sowre face
And swigged my horny barrel,
In an oaken inn I pound my skin
As a suit of gilt apparel.
The moon's my constant Mistrisse,
And the lowly owl my morrowe,
The flaming Drake and the Nightcrow make
Me music to my sorrow.
The palsie plagues my pulses
When I prigg your pigs or pullen,
Your culvers take, or matchless make
Your Chanticleers, or sullen.
When I want provant, with Humfrie
I sup, and when benighted,
I repose in Powles with waking souls
Yet never am affrighted.
I know more than Apollo ,
For oft, when he lies sleeping
I see the stars at bloody wars
In the wounded welkin weeping,
The moone embrace her shepherd
And the queen of Love her warrior,
While the first doth horne the star of morne,
And the next the heavenly Farrier.
The Gipsie Snap and Pedro
Are none of Tom's companions.
The punk I skorne and the cut purse sworne
And the roaring boyes bravadoe.
The meek, the white, the gentle,
Me handle touch and spare not
But those that crosse Tom Rynosseros
Do what the panther dare not.
With a 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 ghostes and shadowes
I summon'd am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wild world's end.
Methinks it is no journey.
anonymous, 1634
with modernized spelling by Bloom
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