COUNTRY GLEE_ENGLISH POETRY_ENGLISH POETRY

Directory:ENGLISH POETRY I

181 COUNTRY GLEE

HAYMAKERS, rakers, reapers, and mowers,

Wait on your Summer-Queen;

Dress up with musk-rose her eglantine bowers,

Daffodils strew the green;

    Sing, dance, and play,

    'Tis holiday;

The sun does bravely shine

On our ears of corn.

    Rich as a pearl

    Comes every girl,

This is mine, this is mine, this is mine;

Let us die, ere away they be borne.

Bow to the Sun, to our Queen, and that fair one

Come to behold our sports;

Each bonny lass here is counted a rare one

As those in princes' courts.

    These and we

    With country glee,

Will teach the woods to resound,

And the hills with echoes hollow:

    Skipping lambs

    Their bleating dams,

'Mongst kids shall trip it round;

For joy thus our wenches we follow.

Wind, jolly huntsmen, your neat bugles shrilly,

Hounds make a lusty cry;

Spring up, you falconers, partridges freely,

Then let your brave hawks fly.

    Horses amain,

    Over ridge, over plain,

The dogs have the stag in chase:

'Tis a sport to content a king.

    So ho, ho! through the skies

    How the proud bird flies,

And sousing, kills with a grace!

Now the deer falls; hark! how they ring.

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