Bedlam Boys

For to see mad Tom of Bedlam,
ten thousand miles I'll travel.
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
for to save her shoes from gravel.

Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys:
Bedlam boys are bonny,
for they all go bare and they live by the air
and they want no drink nor money.

I went down to Pluto's Kitchen
for to get me food one morning,
and there I got souls piping hot,
all on the spit a-turning.

My staff has murdered giants;
my bag a long knife carries
for to cut mince-pies from children's thighs
with which to feed the fairies.

The spirits white as lightning
would on my travels guide me;
the moon would shake and the stars would quake
whenever they espied me.

And when that I'll be murdering
the man in the moon to a powder,
his staff I'll break and his dog I'll shake,
and there'll howl no demon louder.

By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
ten leagues beyond the wild world's end;
methinks it is no journey.

Of forty bare years have I
twice twenty been enraged,
and of thirty been three times fifteen
in durance soundly caged;

Still I do sing any food, any feeding,
feeding, drink or clothing?
come dame, come maid, be not afraid:
poor Tom will injure nothing.

With a host of furious fancies
of which I am commander,
with a flaming spear and a horse of air
through the wilderness I'll wander.

I know more than Apollo,
for oft when he lies sleeping
I see the stars at bloody wars
in the wounded welkin weeping.

From the hag and the hungry goblin
that into rags would rend ye,
may the spirit that stands by the naked man
in the Book of Moons defend ye.

That of your five sound senses
may you never be forsaken,
nor wander from yourselves with Tom
abroad to beg your bacon.