 | The Night Raven |  |
Terrible news, for Taber and Pipe.
An odd companion, walking vp and downe,To pipe a liuing out from towne to towne:
Being at a Wedding busie at his play,
Forgetting daunger of his tedious way,
Belated was, yet be it ill or good,
He did resolue to wander through a wood.
And as he went with knap-sacke full of scrapps,
And Taber at his backe, by fortune happs
That he farre off by Moone-light chanced to see,
A cruell Beare, which forc'd him take a tree,
The beast, with sodaine speed came feircely too't
And fell to scrape and scratch about the roote.
Poore Taborer so scar'd was with the Beare,
He sweate and trembled, in a stinking feare.
At length he thought vpon his wedding scraps
And threw them to the Beare, to fill his chaps.
Who for the time from mining did refraine;
But eating all, fell hard to worke againe.
Oh now (quoth he) I haue no hope at all,
The tree begins to shake, and I must fall,
Adew my friends this Beare will me deuouer,
Yet as a farewell at my dying hower,
Ile haue a fit, as hard as this world goes,
And so betakes him, to his Pipe and Tabor,
And doth them both, so sound and braue belabor,
The Beare amazed from his scratching runs
As if at's breech had bin a peale of guns,
Which when the Taborer with ioy did see,
Well Beare (he said) if this your humor be,
Would I had knowne to vse the charming feate,
You should haue daunc'd, before you had my meate
So downe he comes, and without longer staying,
Thorow the wood goes homeward, al night playing;
Then sends for all his friends, that they may heare
The story of the Piper and the Beare,
Vowing his Tabor was more deere to him,
Then was Arions harpe, when he did swim
Vpon the Dolphins backe, most safe a shore,
And that same Instrument for euer-more
As monument, vnto Tompipers race,
Should show his valour, and the Beares disgrace.
| The Night Raven | |