National Ballad and Song/Volume 1/A Mans Yard

by unknown author

Layout 2

A MANS YARD

[c. 1600–1620]

[Rawl. MS. Poet. 216, lf. 94 back].

Reed me a ridle: what is thisYou holde in your hand when you pisse?It is a kinde of pleasing stinge,A pricking and a pleasing thing;

It is a stiffe shorte fleshly pole,That fittes to stopp a maydens hole;It is Venus wanton staying wand,That ne’re had feet, and yet can stand;

It is a penn with a hole in the toppe,To write betwene her two-leued booke;It is a thing both dumb and blinde,Yet narrowe holles in darke can finde;

It is a dwarfe in height and length,And yet a giannt in his strength;It is a bachelours button newly cutt,The finest new tobacco pipe;

It is the Zirus that makes dead vseWhen he did pull on Vulcans shooes; It is a grafte Horne on a prettye head,A staffe to make a Countesse bedd;

There is never a Ladye in this landBut that will take it in her hand;The fayrest mayd that ere tooke liffe,For loue of this became a weife;

And every wench, by her owne will,Would keepe [it] in her quiuer still.When sturdye stormes arise,Shall blustering windes appeare:

I finde ofte tymes dust in ashes heare,Live kindled coles of fire.With good intent, marke well my minde,You shall herein a secrett find.

[Then follows a kind of rebus:—]

Oh, my faire misteres, in; upp your thighes, The in;And put my into your ,And then my shall wag apace,Sir, is in your mistres then not to deepe, lest if thow inand drowne my in my and driue your out of his placeOwles, Farewell, I wish your trees may growe like to your hornes which make a famus showe,because they are grafted on a fether beddTherefore, good neighboures, I bid you all adue,For I haue written nothing but what that is true.