Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TOM O' BEDLAM'S SONG, by ANONYMOUS First Line: From the hagg and hungrie goblin Last Line: "yet will I sing, etc." Variant Title(s): Loving Mad Tom Subject(s): Insanity;night; Madness;mental Illness;bedtime | ||||||||
From the hag and hungry goblin That into rags would rend ye, The spirit that stands by the naked man In the Book of Moons defend ye, That of your five sound senses You never be forsaken, Nor wander from yourselves with Tom Abroad to beg your bacon, While I do sing, Any food, any feeding, Feeding, drink, 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, And now I sing, etc. With a thought I took for Maudlin And a cruse of cockle pottage, With a thing thus tall, sky bless 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 strip't me naked. And now I sing, etc. When I short have shorn my sow's face And swigg'd my horny barrel, In an oaken inn I pound my skin As a suit of gilt apparel; The moon's my constant mistress And the lovely owl my marrow; The flaming drake and the night crow make Me music to my sorrow. While I do sing, etc. The palsy plagues my pulses When I prig your pigs or pullen, Your culvers take, or matchless make Your Chanticleer or Sullen. When I want provant with Humphrey I sup, and when benighted, I repose in Paul's with waking souls Yet never am affrighted. But I do sing, etc. I know more than Apollo, For oft when he lies sleeping I see the stars at bloody wars In 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 the heavenly Farrier. While I do sing, etc. The gypsies, Snap and Pedro, Are none of Tom's comradoes, The punk I scorn and the cutpurse sworn, And the roaring boy's bravadoes. The meek, the white, the gentle Me handle, touch, and spare not; But those that cross Tom Rynosseross Do what the panther dare not. Although I sing, etc. With an 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 summon'd am to a tourney Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end: Methinks it is no journey. Yet will I sing, etc. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BREATH OF NIGHT by RANDALL JARRELL HOODED NIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP by ROBINSON JEFFERS WORKING OUTSIDE AT NIGHT by DENIS JOHNSON POEM TO TAKE BACK THE NIGHT by JUNE JORDAN COOL DARK ODE by DONALD JUSTICE POEM TO BE READ AT 3 A.M by DONALD JUSTICE ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT by BOB KAUFMAN TIS A LITTLE JOURNEY by ANONYMOUS |
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