Lovin’ Mad Tom

Lyrics

From the hag and hungry goblin That unto rags would rend ye All the spirits that stand by the naked man In the book of moons defend ye That of your five sound senses You never be forsaken Or wander from your selves with Tom Abroad to beg your bacon Of thirty, bare years have I Twice twenty been enragéd And of forty been three times fifteen In durance soundly cagéd In the lordly lofts of Bedlam With stubble soft and dainty Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips, ding-dong Wholesome hunger plenty A thought I took for Maudlin And a cruse of cockle pottage With a thing this tall, Sky bless you all I befell into this dotage I slept not since the Conquest Till then I scarcely waked The roughish bay of love where I lay Me found and stripped me naked When I short have shorn my sow's face And snigged my hairy barrel At an oaken inn, I pound my skin In a suit of gilt apparel The moon's my constant mistress And the lovely owl my marrow A flaming drake and the night crow make Me music to my sorrow I know more than Apollo For oft while he lies sleeping I see the stars at bloody wars And the wounded welkin weeping The moon embrace her shepherd And the Queen of Love her warrior While the first doth horn the star of morn And the next her heavenly harrier The Gypsies, Snap and Pedro Are none of Tom's companions The slut I scorn and the cutpurse sworn And the roaring boy bravadoes The meek, the white, the gentle Me handle, touch or spare not But those that cross Tom Rhinoceros Do what the panther dare not By 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 ghosts and shadows I summoned am to tourney Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end They thinks it is no journey I'll bark against the Dog-Star I'll crow away the morning I'll chase the Moon till it be noon And I'll make her leave her horning But I'll find merry mad Maud And seek whate'er betides her And I shall love beneath and above The dirty earth that hides her