For I, a strumpet in disgrace,

Though one against my will, Before I will so shame my friends, My dear life's blood I'll spill.

For as with wine I was deceiv'd,
And made a vitious dame,
So will I wash away with wine,
My scarlet spots of shame.

Then drinking up her burning wine,
She yielded up her breath,
By which likewise the unborn babe,
Was scalded unto death.

Her mother falling on her knees
To heaven did cry and call;
If ever widow's curse, quoth she,
On mortal man did fall,

Then say, Amen, to mine, O Lord,

That he may never thrive,

That was the cause of this mischance,

But rot away alive!

His nails from off his fingers dropt,
His eyes from out his head,
His toes they rotted from his feet,

Before that he was dead.

His tongue that had false-sworn so oft To compass his desire,

Within his mouth doth glow and burn Like coals of sparkling fire.

And thus in torment in his sin
This wicked caitiff died,
Whose hateful carcase after death
In earth could not abide.

But in the maws of carrion crows,
And ravens made a tomb,
A vengeance just on those that use
On such vile sins presume.

For widows' curses have full oft
Been felt by mortal wights,
And for oppressed widows wrongs

Still heavenly angels fight.

For when King Henry the Sixth by force
Was murdered in the tower,
And his fair queen a widow made

By crook-back'd Richard's power,

She so exclaimed to the heavens,
For to revenge that deed,
That they might die in such like sort,
Which caused him to bleed.

Her curses so prevail'd, God wot,
That every one was slain,

Or murder'd by like cruell hand,

Not one there did remain.

Both crook-back'd Richard and his mates, Lord Lovel and Buckingham,

With many more, did feel her

Which needless are to name.

curse,

For widows' wrongs still pierce the gate

Of God's celestial throne,

And heaven itself will still revenge
Oppressed widows moans.

Take heed, take heed, you wanton youths,
Take heed by this mishap,

Lest for your lust and lechery,
You be caught in a trap.

Leave off your foul abuses,

You shew to maids and wives, And by this wanton merchant's fall, Learn how to mend your lives.

IN Pescod-time, when hound to horn

Gives ear till buck be kill'd, And little lads with pipes of corn Sat keeping beasts a-field,

I went to gather strawberries tho'
By woods and groves full fair;
And parch’d my face with Phoebus so
In walking in the air;

That down I laid me by a stream

With boughs all over-clad,

And there I met the strangest dream,
That ever shepherd had.

Methought I saw each Christmas game,

Each revel, all and some,

And every thing that I can name,

Or may in fancy come.

LXXVII.

"A NEW BALLAD,

INTITULED,

A Warning to Youth, shewing the lewd life of a Marchant's Sonne of London, and the miserie that at the last he sustained by his notoriousnesse."

To the tune of Lord Darley.

[From a black letter copy printed for the Assigns of Symcocke.]

IN London dwelt a merchant man,

That left unto his son

A thousand pounds in land a year,
To spend when he was gone:

With coffers cramm'd with golden crowns,

Most like a father kind,

To have him follow his own steps,

And bear the self same mind.