Page:National Ballad and Song (1897), vol. 1.djvu/32

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10
A MANS YARD

A MANS YARD

[c. 1600–1620]

[Rawl. MS. Poet. 216, lf. 94 back].

Reed me a ridle: what is this
You holde in your hand when you pisse?
It is a kinde of pleasing stinge,
A pricking and a pleasing thing;

It is a stiffe shorte fleshly pole,
That fittes to stopp a maydens hole;
It is Venus wanton staying wand,
That ne’re had feet, and yet can stand;

It is a penn with a hole in the toppe,
To write betwene her two-leued booke;
It is a thing both dumb and blinde,
Yet narrowe holles in darke can finde;

It is a dwarfe in height and length,
And yet a giannt in his strength;
It is a bachelours button newly cutt,
The finest new tobacco pipe;

It is the Zirus that makes dead vse
When he did pull on Vulcans shooes;