The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #72550 Message #2312832
Posted By: Jim Dixon
11-Apr-08 - 07:54 AM
Thread Name: Lyr/Tune Req: Summons to New England
Subject: Lyr Add: SUMMONS TO NEW ENGLAND / N. E. DESCRIBED
Finally! (I hope) from Choyce Drollery: Songs & Sonnets, edited by Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth, 1876, where this poem is reprinted from "Merry Drollery," 1661:
New England described.
Among the purifidian Sect, I mean the counterfeit Elect: Zealous bankrupts, Punks devout, Preachers suspended, rabble rout, Let them sell all, and out of hand Prepare to go to New England, To build new Babel strong and sure, Now call'd a Church unspotted pure.
There Milk from Springs, like Rivers, flows, And Honey upon hawthorn grows; Hemp, Wool, and Flax, there grows on trees, The mould is fat, it cuts like cheese; All fruits and herbs spring in the fields, Tobacco it good plenty yields; And there shall be a Church most pure, Where you may find salvation sure.
There's Venison of all sorts great store, Both Stag, and buck, wild Goat, and Boar, And all so tame, that you with ease May take your fill, eat what you please; There's Beavers plenty, yea, so many, That you may buy two skins a penny, Above all this, a Church most pure, Where to be saved you may be sure.
There's flight of Fowl do cloud the skie, Great Turkies of threescore pound weight, As big as Estriges, there Geese, With thanks, are sold for pence a piece; Of Duck and Mallard, Widgeon, Teale, Twenty for two-pence make a meale; Yea, and a Church unspotted pure, Within whose bosome all are sure.
Loe, there in shoals all sorts of fish, Of the salt seas, and water fresh: Ling, Cod, Poor-John, and Haberdine, Are taken with the Rod and Line; A painful fisher on the shore May take at least twenty an houre; Besides all this a Church most pure, Where you may live and dye secure.
There twice a year all sorts of Grain Doth down from heaven, like hailstones, rain; You ne'r shall need to sow nor plough, There's plenty of all things enough: Wine sweet and wholsome drops from trees, As clear as chrystal, without lees; Yea, and a Church unspotted, pure, From dregs of Papistry secure.
No Feasts nor festival set daies Are here observed, the Lord be prais'd, Though not in Churches rich and strong, Yet where no Mass was ever Sung, The Bulls of Bashan ne'r met there; Surplice and Cope durst not appear; Old Orders all they will abjure, This Church hath all things new and pure.
No discipline shall there be used, The Law of Nature they have chused; All that the spirit seems to move Each man may choose and so approve, There's Government without command, There's unity without a band; A Synagogue unspotted pure, Where lust and pleasure dwells secure.
Loe in this Church all shall be free To Enjoy their Christian liberty; All things made common, void of strife, Each man may take anothers wife, And keep a hundred maids, if need, To multiply, increase, and breed, Then is not this Foundation sure, To build a Church unspotted, pure?
The native People, though yet wild, Are altogether kind and mild, And apt already, by report, To live in this religious sort; Soon to conversion they'l be brought When Warrens Mariery have wrought, Who being sanctified and pure, May by the Spirit them alure.
Let Amsterdam send forth her Brats, Her Fugitives and Runnagates: Let Bedlam, Newgate, and the Clink Disgorge themselves into this sink; Let Bridewell and the stews be kept, And all sent thither to be swept; So may our Church be cleans'd and pure, Keep both it self and state secure.