The doleful Dance, and Song of Death; Intituled, Dance after my Pipe.
To a Pleasant New Tune.
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Can you dance the shaking of the sheets,
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a dance that every one must do?
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Can you trim it up with dainty sweets,
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and every thing as longs thereto?
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Make ready then your winding sheet,
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And see how you can bestir your feet,
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For death is the man that all must meet.
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Bring away the Begger and the King,
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and every man in his degree,
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Bring the old and youngest thing,
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come all to death and follow me.
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The Courtier with his lofty looks,
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The Lawyer with his learned Books,
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The Banker with his baiting-hooks.
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Merchants have you made your Mart in France,
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in Italy and all about?
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Know you not that you and I must dance,
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both our heels wrapt in a clout:
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What mean you to make your houses gay,
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And I must take the Tenant away,
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And dig for your sakes the clods of clay.
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Think you on the solemn Sizes past,
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how suddenly in Oxfordshire,
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I came and made the Judges all agast,
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and Justices that did appear.
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And took both Bell and Baram away,
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And many a worthy man that day,
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And all their bodies brought to clay.
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Think you that I dare not come to Schools,
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where all the cunning Clerks be most?
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Take I not always both wise and fools,
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and am I not in every Coast?
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Assure your selves no creature can,
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Make death affraid of any man,
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Or know my coming, where or when.
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where be they that make their Leases strong
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and joyn about them land to land,
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Do you make account to live so long,
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to have the world come to your hand:
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No foolish nowle, for all thy pence,
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Full soon thy soul must needs go hence,
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Then who shall toyl for thy defence.
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And you that lean on your Ladies laps,
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and lay your heads upon their knee,
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Think you for to play with beautious paps,
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and not to come and dance with me:
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No, fair Lords and Ladies all,
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I will make you come when I do call,
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And find you a Pipe to dance withal.
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And you that are busie-headed fools,
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to bubble of a pelting straw,
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Know you not that I have ready tools,
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to cut you from your crafty Law:
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And you that safely buy and sell,
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And think you make your Markets well,
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Must dance with death wheresoe're you dwel
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Pride must have a pretty sheet, I see,
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for properly she loves to dance,
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Come away my wanton Wench to me,
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as gallantly as your eye can glance:
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And all good-fellows that flash and swash,
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In reds and yellows of rebel dash,
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I warrant you need not be so rash.
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For I can quickly cool you all,
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how hot or stout so e're you be,
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Both high and low, both great and small,
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I nought do fear your high degree.
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The Ladies fair, the Beldams old,
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The Champion stout, the Souldier bold,
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Must all with me to earthly mold.
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Therefore take time while it is lent,
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prepare with me your selves to dance,
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Forget me not, your lives lament,
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I come oftentimes by sudden chance.
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Be ready therefore, watch and pray,
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That when my Minstrel pipe doth play,
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You may to Heaven dance the way.
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FINIS.
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A Godly Ballad of the Just Man Job.
Wherein his great patience he doth declare,
His plagues and his miseries, and yet did not despair.
The Tune is, The Merchant.
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WAlking all alone,
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No not long agone,
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I heard one wail and weep;
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alas he said,
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I am laid
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In sorrow strong and deep,
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To hear him cry,
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I did reply,
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and privily above,
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there did I find,
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in secret mind.
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the just and patient Job.
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His woful pain
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Did me constrain,
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by force to wail and moan,
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God did him prove,
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how he did love,
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the living Lord alone.
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In heaviness,
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He did express,
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these words with bitter tears,
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alas poor man,
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wretched I am,
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in care my self out-wares.
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This mortal life,
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Is but a strife,
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a battel great and strong,
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my years also,
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to wast and go,
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and not continue long.
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The day wherein,
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I did begin,
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to move and stir my breath,
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would God I had,
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an exchange made,
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and turned unto death.
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So should not I
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In misery,
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be wrapped as I am,
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the time and day,
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well curse I may,
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when to this world I came.
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For my faults past,
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I am out-cast,
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and of all men abhor'd,
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O that I might,
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once stand in sight,
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to reason with the Lord.
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I should then know,
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Why he doth show
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this extream cruelty,
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upon his flesh,
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which is but grass,
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and born is for to dye.
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From top to toe,
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I feel with woe,
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that sorrow is my meat,
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put to exile,
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with Botch and Boyl,
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and dung-hill is my seat.
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My Kinsfolk talk
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And by me walk,
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wondring at my fall,
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they count my state,
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unfortunate,
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and so forsake me all.
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My children five,
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Which were alive,
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they all be quite destroy'd,
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The Plague fell
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on my Cattel,
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With all that I enjoy'd.
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Should I for them
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My God Blaspheme,
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and his good gifts despise,
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that will I not,
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but take my lot,
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giving his name the praise.
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They were not mine,
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But for a time,
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I know well it is so,
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God gave them me,
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why should not he,
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again take them me fro.
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Thus having laid,
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Full still I staid,
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his end for to behold,
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I there did see,
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his felicity,
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increasing manifold.
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I know well then,
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How patient men,
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should not suffer in vain,
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but shall be sure,
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to have pleasure,
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rewarded for their pain.
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FINIS.
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