Daily Quotation

From the hagg and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye,
All the spirits that stand by the naked man
In the Book of Moons defend ye!
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from your selves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon.

Of thirty bare years have I
Twice twenty been enragèd,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagèd.
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam,
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whip's ding-dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty.

With a thought I took for Maudlin
And a cruse of cockle pottage,
With a thing thus tall, sky bless you all,
I befell into this dotage.
I slept not since the Conquest,
Till then I never wakèd,
Till the roguish boy of love where I lay
Me found and stripped me naked.

I know more than Apollo,
For oft, when hee lies sleeping,
I see the stars at bloody wars
In the wounded welkin weeping;
The moon embrace her shepherd,
And the queen of Love her warrior,
While the first doth horn the star of morn,
And the next the heavenly Farrier.
~ From Tom O'Bedlam - 17th Century Ballad~