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POETRY OF THE ENGLISH

RENAISSANCE

1509-1660

JOHN SKELTON

The Introduction and Notes are at page 908

FROM Pithy, Pleasant, and Profitable Works, 1568

Philip Sparrow

Pla ce bo,

Who is there? Who?
Di le xi,
Dame Margery.
Fa, re, mi, mi,
Wherefore and why, why?
For the soul of Philip Sparrow,
That was late slain at Carow
Among the Nunnës Blake,
For that sweet soul's sake
And for all sparrows' souls
Set in our beadrolls,
Pater noster qui
With an Ave Mari,

And with the corner of a Creed,
The more shall be your meed.
When I remember again
How my Philip was slain,
Never half the pain
Was between you twain,
Pyramus and Thisbe,
As then befell to me:
I wept and I wailed,
The tearës down hailed,-
But nothing it availed
To call Philip again,
Whom Gib, our cat, hath slain.

Gib, I say, our cat
Worrowed her on that
Which I loved best.
It cannot be expressed-
My sorrowful heaviness,
But all without redress;

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For within that stound,
Half slumb'ring, in a swound,
I fell down to the ground.
Unneth I cast mine eyes
Toward the cloudy skies,
But when I did behold
My sparrow dead and cold,
No creature but that wold
Have rued upon me,
To behold and see
What heaviness did me pang;
Wherewith my hands I wrang,
That my sinews cracked
As though I had been racked;
So pained and so strained
That no life well-nigh remained.

I sighed and I sobbed
For that I was robbed

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But Philip's soul to keep
From the marees deep
Of Acheronte's well,
That is a flood of hell,

And from the great Pluto,
The prince of endless woe;

And from foul Alecto

With visage black and blo;
And from Medusa, that mare,
That like a fiend doth stare;
And from Megera's adders,
For ruffling of Philip's feathers,
And from her fiery sparklings
For burning of his wings;
And from the smokës sour
Of Proserpina's bower;
And from the dennës dark
Where Cerberus doth bark,
Whom Theseus did affray,
Whom Hercules did outray,
As famous poets say;
From that hell-hound
That lieth in chainës bound,
With ghastly headës three,
To Jupiter pray we
That Philip preserved may be!
Amen, say ye with me!
Do mi nus,

Help now, sweet Jesus!

It was so pretty a fool, It would sit on a stool And learned after my school For to keep his cut, With, Philip, keep your cut! It had a velvet cap, And would sit upon my lap And seek after small worms And sometime white bread

crumbs;

And many times and oft
Between my brestës soft
It would lie and rest;
It was propre and prest.
Sometime he would gasp

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And take me by the lip. Alas, it will me slo

That Philip is gone me fro!

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Gave him his mortal wound,

Changed to a deer;

The story doth appear

Was changed to an hart:

So thou, foul cat that thou art,

The self-same hound

Might thee confound
That his own lord bote,

Might bite asunder thy throat!

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Or books to compile
Of divers manner style,

Vice to revile

And sin to exile?

To teach or to preach
As reason will reach?

Say this, and say that:
His head is so fat

He wotteth never what

Nor whereof he speaketh;
He crieth and he creaketh,
He prieth and he peeketh,
He chides and he chatters,
He prates and he patters,
He clitters and he clatters,
He meddles and he smatters,
He glozes and he flatters!
Or if he speak plain,
Then he lacketh brain,
He is but a fool;
Let him go to school.
A three-footed stool!
That he may down sit,
For he lacketh wit!
And if that he hit

The nail on the head,
It standeth in no stead;

The devil, they say, is dead,
The devil is dead.

It may well so be,
Or else they would see
Otherwise, and flee
From worldly vanity,
And foul covetousness
And other wretchedness,
Fickle falseness,

Variableness

With unstableness.

And if ye stand in doubt

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Who brought this rhyme about,

My name is Colin Clout.

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