Page:The Pennyles Pilgrimage.djvu/18

Wit's whetstone, Want, there made us quickly learn,
With knives to cut down rushes, and green fern,
Of which we made a field-bed in the field,
Which sleep, and rest, and much content did yield.
There with my mother earth, I thought it fit
To lodge, and yet no incest did commit:
My bed was curtained with good wholesome airs,
And being weary, I went up no stairs:
The sky my canopy, bright Phœbe shined
Sweet bawling Zephyrus breathed gentle wind,
In heaven's star-chamber I did lodge that night,
Ten thousand stars, me to my bed did light;
There barricadoed with a bank lay we
Below the lofty branches of a tree,
There my bed-fellows and companions were,
My man, my horse, a bull, four cows, two steer:
But yet for all this most confused rout,
We had no bed-staves, yet we fell not out.
Thus nature, like an ancient free upholster,
Did furnish us with bedstead, bed, and bolster;
And the kind skies, (for which high heaven be thanked,)
Allowed us a large covering and a blanket;
Auroras face 'gan light our lodging dark,
We arose and mounted, with the mounting lark,
Through plashes, puddles, thick, thin, wet and dry,
I travelled to the city Coventry.