Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 1

Ancient Songs, Ballads, & Dance Tunes, Sheet Music & Lyrics - online book

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FROM HENRY VII. TO MARY.                                            85
Many ballads were sung to it, and among them, King Olfrey and the old Allot, which is on the same story as King John and the Abbot of Canterbury; and The Song of the Gaps, in the Roxburghe Collection, which is also, in an altered form, in Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy.
The following ballad is from a black-letter copy, in the Ashmolean Museum.
Bring away the beggar and the king,
And every man in his degree ; Bring away the old and youngest thing,
Come all to death, and follow me; The courtier with his lofty looks, The lawyer with his learned books, The banker with his baiting hooks.
Merchants, have you made your mart in France,
In Italy, and all about, Know you not that you and I must dance,
Both our heels wrapt in a clout; What mean you to make your houses gay, And I must take the tenant away, And dig for your sake the clods of clay ?