Classic Poem

Lenten stuff is come to the town,
The cleansing week comes quickly;
You know well inow you must kneel down:
Come on, take ashes trickly.

Herring, herring, white and red,
Seek out such as be rotten;
Though some be hanged and some be dead
And some be yet forgotten.

Walfleet oysters salt and green
Are trim meats to be eaten:
Trusty subjects to their queen
Need never to be beaten.

Lily-white mussels have no peer,
The fishwives fetch them quickly:
So he that hath a conscience clear
May stand to his tackle trickly.

Carp is counted very good,
A trim fish and a dainty,
But if it smell once of the mud
Who'll give a groat for twenty?

Gudgeons make a goodly dish
For such cheese as be sickly;
And as yet is a foolish fish
And will be taken quickly.

Then Jack-a-Lent comes jostling in,
With the head piece of a herring,
And saith: " Repent you of your sin,
For shame, sirs, leave your swearing. "

And to Palm Sunday doth he ride,
With sprats and herring by his side,
And makes an end of Lenten tide.