FAREWELL, rewards and fairies, Good housewives now may say, For now foul sluts in dairies Do fare as well as they. And though they sweep their hearths no less Than maids were wont to do, Yet who of late for cleanliness Finds sixpence in her shoe? Lament, lament, old Abbeys, The Fairies' lost command! They did but change Priests' babies, But some have changed your land. And all your children, sprung from thence, Are now grown Puritans, Who live as Changelings ever since For love of your demains. At morning and at evening both You merry were and glad, So little care of sleep or sloth These pretty ladies had; When Tom care home from labour, Or Cis to milking rose, Then merrily went their tabor, And nimbly went their toes. Witness those rings and roundelays Of theirs, which yet remain. Were footed in Queen Mary's days On many a grassy plain; But since of late, Elizabeth, And, later, James came in, They never danced on any heath As when the time hath bee. By which we note the Fairies Were of the old Profession. Their songs were 'Ave Mary's', Their dances were Procession. But now, alas, they all are dead; Or gone beyond the seas; Or farther for Religion fled: Or else they take their case. A tell-tale in their company They never could endure! And whoso kept not secretly Their mirth, was punished, sure; It was a just and Charistian deed To pinch such black and blue. Oh how the commonwealth doth want Such Justices as you! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CHRISTMAS EVERYWHERE by PHILLIPS BROOKS O BLACK AND UNKNOWN BARDS by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS by LIONEL PIGOT JOHNSON BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE by EZRA POUND MAUBERLEY: 5. MEDALLION by EZRA POUND |