If to repay
They do delay,
Abroad amongst them then I go,
And, night by night,
I them affright
With pinchings, dreams, and ho, ho, ho!
When lazy queans have nought to do,
But study how to cog and lie;
To make debate and mischief too,
'Twixt one another secretly:
I mark their gloze,
And it disclose,
To them whom they have wronged so:
When I have done,
I get me gone,
And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho!
When men do traps and engines set
In loop-holes, where the vermin creep,
Who from their folds and houses, get
Their ducks and geese, and lambs and sheep;
I spy the gin,
And enter in,
And seem a vermin taken so;
But when they there
Approach me near,
I leap out laughing ho, ho, ho!
By wells and rills, in meadows green,
We nightly dance our heydeguys;
And to our fairy king and queen
We chant our moon-light minstrelsies.
When larks 'gin sing,
Away we fling;
And babes new-born steal as we go,
And elf in bed
We leave instead,
And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!
From hag-bred Merlin's time have I
Thus nightly revell'd to and fro:
And for my pranks men call me by
The name of Robin Good-fellow.
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