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RAMBLES ABOUT BURWASH 25
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they ; And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids are wont to do, Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixpence in her shoe ? "
Kipling was indebted to the writer of these verses for his title. Who was the author ? Bishop Corbet, of Oxford, and Norwich, and the poem was written somewhere about 1612. There is an old-world tone in such lines as these :
" At morning and at evening both,
You merry were and glad, So little care of sleep and sloth
These pretty ladies had. When Tom came home from labour,
Or Ciss to milking rose, Then merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.
Witness these rings and roundelays
Of theirs which still remain, Were footed in Queen Mary's days,
On many a grassy plain. But since of late Elizabeth,
And later James, came in, They never dance on any hearth
As when the time hath bin."
In " Dymchurch Flit," Kipling traces the |
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