The Mad Merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow (Possibly by Ben Jonson).

From Oberon in fairyland,
the king of ghosts and shadows there,
Mad Robbin I, at his command,
am sent to view the night sports here:
What revell rout
Is kept about,
In every corner where I goe,
I will o’er see,
And merry be,
And make good sport with ho, ho, ho!

More swift than lightening can I flye,
and round about this airy welkin soone,
And, in a minute’s space, descry
each thing that’s done beneath the moone;
There’s not a hag
Nor ghost shall wag,
Nor cry “goblin!” where I doe goe,
But Robin I
Their feats will spye,
And feare them home with ho, ho, ho!

If any wanderers I meet
that from their night-sports doe trudge home,
With counterfeiting voyce I greet
and cause them on with me to roame,
Through woods, through lakes,
Through bogs, through brakes, —
Ore bush and brier with them I goe;
I call upon
Them to come on,
And wend me, laughing ho, ho, ho!

Sometimes I meet them like a man;
sometimes an oxe, sometimes a hound;
And to a horse I turne me can,
to trip and trot about them round.
But if to ride
My back they stride,
More swift than winde away I goe;
Ore hedge and lands,
Through pooles and ponds,
I whirry, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When ladds and lasses merry be
With possets and with junkets fine,
Unseene of all the company,
I eate their cakes and sip their wine;
And to make sport,
I fart and snort,
And out the candles I doe blow;
The maides I kisse,
They shrieke, “Who’s this?”
I answer nought, but ho, ho, ho!

Yet now and then, the maids to please,
I card at midnight up their wooll:
And while they sleep, snort, fart and fease,
with wheel to threds their flax I pull:
I grind at mill
Their malt [up] still,
I dresse their hemp, I spin their towe;
If any wake,
And would me take,
I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When house or harth doth sluttish lie,
I pinch the maids there blacke and blew;
And, from the bed, the bed-clothes I
pull off, and lay them naked to view:
twixt sleepe and wake
I doe them take,
And on the key-colde floore them throw;
If out they cry,
Then forth flye I,
And loudly laugh I, ho, ho, ho!

When any need to borrow ought,
we lend them what they do require;
And for the use demaund we nought,
our owne is all we doe desire:
If to repay
They doe delay,
Abroad amongst them then I goe,
And night by night
I them affright,
With pinching, dreames, and ho, ho, ho!

When lazie queanes have nought to doe
but study how to cogge and lie,
To make debate, and mischiefe too,
twixt one another secretly:
I marke their glosse,
And doe disclose
To them that they had wronged so;
When I have done,
I get me gone,
And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho!

When men doe traps and engins set
in loope-holes, where the vermine creepe,
That from their foulds and houses fet
their ducks and geese, their lambs and sheepe:
I spy the gin,
And enter in,
And seemes a vermine taken so,
But when they there
Approach me neare,
I leape out, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

By wels and gils in medowes greene,
we nightly dance our hey-day guise,
And to our fairy King and Queene
wee chant our moone-light harmonies.
When larkes ‘gin sing,
Away we fling;
And babes new borne steale as we goe;
An elfe in bed
We leave in stead,
And wend us, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

From hag-bred Merlin’s time have I
thus nightly reveld to and fro:
And, for my pranks, men call me by
the name of Robin Good-fellow:
Fiends, ghosts, and sprites
That haunt the nights,
The hags and goblins doe me know,
And beldames old,
My feats have told,
So Vale, Vale, ho, ho, ho!