HAYMAKERS, rakers, reapers, and mowers, <br />Wait on your Summer-queen; <br />Dress up with musk-rose her eglantine bowers, <br />Daffodils strew the green; <br />Sing, dance, and play, <br />'Tis holiday; <br />The sun does bravely shine <br />On our ears of corn. <br />Rich as a pearl <br />Comes every girl, <br />This is mine, this is mine, this is mine; <br />Let us die, ere away they be borne. <br /> <br />Bow to the Sun, to our queen, and that fair one <br />Come to behold our sports: <br />Each bonny lass here is counted a rare one, <br />As those in a prince's courts. <br />These and we <br />With country glee, <br />Will teach the woods to resound, <br />And the hills with echoes hollow: <br />Skipping lambs <br />Their bleating dams, <br />'Mongst kids shall trip it round; <br />For joy thus our wenches we follow. <br /> <br />Wind, jolly huntsmen, your neat bugles shrilly, <br />Hounds make a lusty cry; <br />Spring up, you falconers, the partridges freely, <br />Then let your brave hawks fly. <br />Horses amain, <br />Over ridge, over plain, <br />The dogs have the stag in chase: <br />'Tis a sport to content a king. <br />So ho ho! through the skies <br />How the proud bird flies, <br />And sousing kills with a grace! <br />Now the deer falls; hark, how they ring!<br /><br />Thomas Dekker<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/country-glee/
