Tom O’Bedlam's Song =================== Anonymous From the hag and hungry goblin That into rags would rend ye, The spirit that stands by the naked man In the Book of Moons defend ye, That of your five sound senses You never be forsaken, Nor wander from your selves with Tom Abroad to beg your bacon, While I do sing, Any food, any feed, Feeding, drink, or clothing; Dame or maid, be not afraid, Poor Tom will injure nothing. With a thought I took for Maudlin And a cruse of cockle pottage, With a thing thus tall, sky bless you all, I befell into this dotage. I slept not since the Conquest, Till then I never wakèd, Till the roguish boy of love where I lay Me found and stripped me naked. And now I sing, Any food, any feed, Feeding, drink, or clothing; Dame or maid, be not afraid, Poor Tom will injure nothing. I know more than Apollo, For oft when he lies sleeping I see the stars at bloody wars In the wounded welkin weeping; The moon embrace her shepherd, And the Queen of Love her warrior, While the first doth horn the star of morn, And the next the heavenly Farrier. With an host of furious fancies Whereof I am commander, With a burning spear and a horse of air, To the wilderness I wander. By a knight of ghosts and shadows, I summoned am to a tourney Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end: Methinks it is no journey. Yet I will sing, Any food, any feed, Feeding, drink, or clothing; Dame or maid, be not afraid, Poor Tom will injure... Come dame Come maid Be not Afraid Come dame Come maid Poor Tom will injure Nothing