Bedlam Boys

For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam

Ten thousand miles I traveled

Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes

To save her shoes from gravel

Chorus:

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 all want no drink nor money

I went down to Satan's kitchen

To break my fast one morning

And there I got souls piping hot

All on the spit a-turning

Chorus

There I took a cauldron

Where boiled ten thousand harlots

Though full of fame I drank the same

To he health of all such varlets

Chorus

My staff has murdered giants

My bag a long knife carries

To cut mince pies from children's thighs

For which to feed the fairies

Chorus

The moon's my constant mistress,

And the lonely owl my marrow

The flaming drake and the night crow make

Me music to my sorrow

Chorus

The spirits white as lightening

Would on my travels guide me

The stars would shake and the moon would quake

Whenever they espied me

Chorus

And then that I'll be moudering

The Man in the Moon to the powder

His staff I'll break, his dog I'll shake

And there'll howl no demon louder

Chorus

The Gipsys, Snap and Pedro

Are none of Tom's comradoes

The pubk I scorn, and the cutpurse sowrm

And the roaring boy's bravadoes

Chorus

The meek, the white, the gentle,

Mu handle not nor spare not

But those that cross Tom Rhinoceros (Rynosseross)

Do what the panther dare not

Chorus

That of your five sound senses

You never be forsaken

Nor wander from your selves with Tom

Abroad to beg your bacon

Chorus

I'll bark against the Dog-Star

I'll crow away the morning

I'll chase the Moon till it be noon

And i'll make her leave her horning

Chorus

I now repent that ever

Poor Tom was so disdain-ed

My wits are lost since him I crossed

Which makes me thus go chained

Chorus

So drink to Tom of Bedlam

Go fill the seas in barrels

I'll drink it all, well brewed with gall

And Maudlin drunk

I'll quarrel

Chorus