Classic Poem

Hum drum, sauce for a cony;
No more of your martial music;
Even for the sake of the next new stake,
For there I do mean to use it.

And now to ye, who in place are to see,
With roll and farthingale hooped:
I pray you know, though he want his bow,
By the wings that this is Cupid.

He might go back, for to cry 'What you lack?'
But that were not so witty:
His cap and coat are enough to note,
That he is the Love of the city.

And he leads on, though he now be gone,
For that was only his rule:
But now comes in Tom of Bosom's Inn,
And he presenteth misrule.

Which you may know by the very show,
Albeit you never ask it:
For there you may see what his ensigns be,
The rope, the cheese, and the basket.

This carol plays, and has been in his days
A chirping boy and a kill-pot;
Kit-cobbler it is, I'm a father of his,
And he dwells in the lane called Fill-pot.

But who is this? O, my daughter Cis
Mince-pie; with her do not dally
On pain of your life: she's an honest cook's wife,
And comes out of Scalding Alley.

Next in the trace comes Gambol in place;
And to make my tale the shorter,
My son Hercules, ta'en out of Distaff Lane,
But an active man and a porter.

Now Post and Pair, old Christmas' heir,
Doth make and a jingling sally;
And wot you who, 'tis one of my two
Sons, card-makers in Pur Alley.

Next in a trice, with his box and his dice,
MacPippin my son, but younger,
Brings Mumming in; and the knave will win,
For he is a costermonger.

But New Year's Gift of himself makes shift
To tell you what his name is:
With orange on head and his gingerbread,
Clem Wasp of Honey Lane 'tis.

This I tell you is our jolly wassail,
And for Twelfth Night more meet, too:
She works by the ell, and her name is Nell,
And she dwells in Threadneedle Street, too.

Then Offering, he, with his dish and his tree,
That in every great house keepeth,
Is by my son, young Littleworth, done,
And in Penny-rich Street he sleepeth.

Last, Baby-cake, that an end doth make
Of Christmas' merry, merry vein-a,
Is Child Rowlan, and a straight young man,
Though he come out of Crooked Lane-a.

There should have been, and a dozen I ween,
But I could find but one more
Child of Christmas, and a log it was,
When I them all had gone o'er.

I prayed him, in a time so trim,
That he would make one to prance it:
And I myself would have been the twelfth,
O, but Log was too heavy to dance it.
(from Christmas His Masque).