The Maunding Souldier:
OR,
The Fruits of Warre is Beggery.
To the tune of, Permit me Friends.
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Good your worship cast your eyes,
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Upon a Souldiers miseries;
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Let not my leane cheekes, I pray,
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Your bounty from a Souldier stay,
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But like a Noble friend,
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Some Silver lend,
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and Jove shall pay you in the end;
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And I will pray that Fate,
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May make you fortunate,
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in heavenly, and in Earths estate.
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To beg I was not borne (sweet Sir)
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And therefore blush to make this stirre;
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I never went from place to place,
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For to divulge my wofull case:
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For I am none of those
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That roguing goes,
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that maunding shewes their drunken blowes,
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Which they have onely got,
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While they have bangd the Pot,
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in wrangling who should pay the shot.
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I scorne to make comparison,
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With those of Kent-street Garrison,
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That in their lives nere crost the Seas,
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But still at home have livd at ease,
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Yet will they lye and sweare,
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As though they were,
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men t[ha]t had traveld farre and neere,
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True Souldiers company,
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doth teach them how to lye,
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they can discourse most perfectly.
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But I doe scorne such Counterfaits
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That get their meanes by base deceits,
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They learne of others to speake Dutch,
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Of Holland theyl tell you as much,
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as those that have bin there,
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full many a yeere,
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and name the Townes all farre and neere,
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yet they never went
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beyond Graves-end in Kent,
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but in Kent-street three dayes are spent,
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But in Olympicke Games have beene,
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Whereas brave Battels I have seene;
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And where the Cannon use to roare,
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My proper spheare was evermore,
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the danger I have past,
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both first and last,
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would make your worships selfe agast,
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a thousand times I have
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been ready for the grave,
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three times I have been made a Slave.
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Twice through the Bulke I have been shot,
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My braines have boyled like a Pot:
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I have at lest these doozen times,
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Been blowne up by those roguish Mines,
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under a Barracado
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in a Bravado,
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throwing of a hand-Granado:
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Oh death was very neere,
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for it tooke away my eare,
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and yet (thanke God) cham here, cham here
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The second part. To the same tune.
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I Have upon the Seas been tane
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By th Dunkerks, for the King of Spaine,
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And stript out of my garments quite,
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Exchanging all for Canvis white,
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and in that poore aray,
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for many a day,
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I have been kept, till friends did pay,
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a ransome for release
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and having bought my peace,
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my woes againe did fresh increase,
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Theres no Land-service as you can name,
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But I have been actor in the same,
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Inth Palatinate and Bohemia,
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I served many a wofull day,
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at Frankendale I have,
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like a Souldier brave,
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receivd what welcomes Canons gave;
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for the honour of England,
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most stoutly did I stand.
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gainst the Emperours and Spinolaes Band.
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At push of Pike I lost mine eye,
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At Bergen Siege I broke my thigh:
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At Ostend, though I were a Lad,
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I laid about me as I were mad,
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Oh you would little ween,
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that I had been,
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an old, old Souldier to the Queene,
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but if Sir Francis Vere,
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were living now and here,
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heed tell you how I slasht it there.
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Since that I have been in Breda,
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Besiegd by Marquesse Spinola,
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And since that made a Warlike Dance,
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Both into Spaine, and into France,
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and there I lost a flood
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of Noble blood,
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and did but very little good:
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and now I home am come,
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with ragges about my bumme,
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God blesse you Sir, from this poore summe:
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And now my case you understand,
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Good Sir, will you lend your helping hand,
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A little thing will pleasure me,
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And keepe in use your charity:
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It is not Bread nor Cheese,
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nor Barrell Lees,
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nor any scraps of meat like these,
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but I doe beg of you,
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a shilling or two,
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sweet Sir, your Purses strings undoe.
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I pray your worship thinke on me,
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That am what I doe seeme to be,
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No Rooking Rascall, nor no Cheat,
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But a Souldier every way compleat,
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I have wounds to show,
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that prove tis so,
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then courteous good Sir, ease my woe,
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and I for you will pray,
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both night and day,
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that your substance never may decay.
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