Five Songs , opus 148

       In a dream, Love bade me go
       To the galleys there to row ;
       In the vision I ask'd why ?
       Love as briefly did reply,
'Twas better there to toil, than prove
The turmoils they endure that love.
       I awoke, and then I knew
       What Love said was too-too true ;
       Henceforth therefore I will be,
       As from love, from trouble free.
None pities him that's in the snare,
And warn'd before would not beware.

Hence a blessed soul is fled,
Leaving here the body dead;
Which since here they can't combine,
For the saint we'll keep the shrine.

Here, here I live with what my board
Can with the smallest cost afford.
Though ne'er so mean the viands be,
They well content my Prew and me.
Or pea, or bean, or wort, or beet,
Whatever comes, content makes sweet.
Here we rejoice, because no rent
We pay for our poor tenement
Wherein we rest, and never fear
The landlord or the usurer.
The quarter-day does ne'er affright
Our peaceful slumbers in the night.
We eat our own and batten more,
Because we feed on no man's score ;
But pity those whose flanks grow great,
Swell'd with the lard of other's meat.
We bless our fortunes when we see
Our own beloved privacy ;
And like our living, where we're known
To very few, or else to none.

Holyrood, come forth and shield
Us i' th' city and the field :
Safely guard us, now and aye,
From the blast that burns by day ;
And those sounds that us affright
In the dead of dampish night.
Drive all hurtful fiends us fro,
By the time the cocks first crow.

These Springs were Maidens once that lov'd,
But lost to that, they most approv'd:
My Story tels, by Love they were
Turn'd to these Springs, which we see here:
The pretty whimpering that they make,
When of the Banks their leave they take;
Tels yee but this, they are the same,
In nothing chang'd but in their name.