Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/142

138 Drink fills us with joy and gladness, and soon

Hangs cankered care on the horns of the moon;

Is bed and bedding; and love and mirth

Dip their wings in drink ere they mount from the earth.

Come toom the stoup—it's delightful to see

The world run round, fit to whomel on me;

And yon bonnie bright star, by my sooth it's a shiner,

Ilka drop that I drink it seems glowing diviner.

Away with your lordships of mosses and mools,

With your women, the plague and the plaything of fools;

Away with your crowns, and your sceptres, and mitres;

Lay the parson's back bare to the rod of the smiters;

For wisdom wastes time, and reflection is folly,

Let learning descend to the score and the tally.

Lo! the floor's running round, the roof's swimming in glory,

And I have but breath for to finish my story.

"The arch, and something of a drunken gravity, with which this rhyme was chanted, with the accompanying 'thrum, thrum' on the fiddle, rendered it far from unpleasant. John Mackleg, whether desirous of emulating his companion, or smitten, perhaps, with a wayward desire of song, raised himself up from his lair, and improved the melody of a wild and indecorous rhyme by the hollow sound extracted by means of his drinking quaigh from the head of an empty barrel. I can trust myself with repeating four of the verses only; the others, when the drink is at home and the understanding gone out, may be endured at midnight by the lee-side of a bowl of punch; but I see by the gathering storm in the brow of that sedate dame that I have said enough about the graceless song, yet she will endure a specimen, I have some suspicion.

Good evening to thee, madam moon,

Sing brown barley bree,

Good evening to thee, madam moon,

Sing bree;

So gladsomely ye're glowering down,

Fu' loth am I to part so soon,

But all the world is running roun'

With me.

A fair good morrow to thee, sun,

Sing brown barley bree;

A fair good morrow to thee, sun,

Sing bree;