Classic Poem

FIT THE SIXTH

Maud Ruggy thither skipped:
She was ugly hipped,
And ugly thick lipped,
Like an onion sided,
Like tan leather hided.
She had her so guided
Between the cup and the wall
That she was there withal
Into a palsy fall;
With that her head shaked,
And her hand─ùs quaked,
One's head would have ached
To see her naked.
She drank so of the dregg─ùs,
The dropsy was in her legg─ùs;
Her face glistering like glass,
All foggy fat she was.
She had also the gout
In all her joints about;
Her breath was sour and stale,
And smelled all of ale:
Such a bedfellaw
Would make one cast his craw.
But yet for all that
She drank on the mash-vat.
There came an old ribibe:
She halted of a kibe,
And had broken her shin
At the threshold coming in,
And fell so wide open
That one might see her token,
The devil thereon be wroken!
What need all this be spoken?
She yelled like a calf.
" Rise up, on God's half!"
Said Elinour Rumming,
" I beshrew thee for thy coming!"
And as she at her did pluck,
" Quack, quack!" said the duck
In that lampatram's lap;
With " Fie, cover thy shap
With some flip flap!
God give it ill hap,"
Said Elinour, " for shame!" —
Like an honest dame.
Up she start, half lame,
And scantly could go
For pain and for woe.
In came another dant,
With a goose and a gant:
She had a wide weasant;
She was nothing pleasant,
Necked like an elephant;
It was a bulliphant,
A greedy cormorant.

Another brought her garlic heads,
Another brought her beads
(Of jet or of coal)
To offer to the ale pole.
Some brought a wimble,
Some brought a thimble,
Some brought a silk lace,
Some brought a pincase,
Some her husband's gown,
Some a pillow of down,
Some of the napery
...
And all this shift they make
For the good ale sake.

" A straw!" said Bely, " stand utter,
For we have eggs and butter,
...
And of pigeons a pair."

Then start forth a fizgig,
And she brought a boar pig,
The flesh thereof was rank,
And her breath strongly stank;
Yet, ere she went, she drank,
And gat her great thank
Of Elinour for her ware
That she thither bare
To pay for her share.
Now truly, to my thinking,
This is a solemn drinking!