Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

“Riding to London, on Dunstable Way”

Anonymous

(A Song from Merry Drollery, 1661)

RIDING to London, on Dunstable way
I met with a Maid on Midsummer day,
Her Eyes they did sparkle like Stars in the sky,
Her face it was fair, and her forehead was high:
The more I came to her, the more I did view her,	5
The better I lik’d her pretty sweet face,
I could not forbear her, but still I drew near her,
And then I began to tell her my case:
Whither walk’st thou, my pretty sweet soul?
She modestly answer’d to Hockley-i’th-hole.	10
I ask’d her her business; she had a red cheek,
She told me, she went a poor service to seek;
I said, it was pity she should leave the City,
And settle herself in a Country Town;
She said it was certain it was her hard fortune	15
To go up a maiden, and so to come down.
With that I alighted, and to her I stept,
I took her by th’ hand, and this pretty maid wept;
Sweet, weep not, quoth I: I kissed her soft lip;
I wrung her by the hand, and my finger she nipped;	20
So long there I wooed her, such reasons I shewed her,
That she my speeches could not control,
But curtsied finely, and got up behind me,
And back she rode with me to Hockley-i’th’-hole.
When I came to Hockley at the sign of the Cock,	25
By a lighting I chanced to see her white smock,
It lay so alluring upon her round knee,
I call for a Chamber immediately;
I hugged her, I tugged her, I kissed her, I smugged her,
And gently I laid her down on a bed,	30
With nodding and pinking, with sighing and winking,
She told me a tale of her Maidenhead.
While she to me this story did tell,
I could not forbear, but on her I fell;
I tasted the pleasure of sweetest delight,	35
We took up our lodging, and lay there all night;
With soft arms she rouled me, and ofttimes told me,
She loved me dearly, even as her own soul:
But on the next morrow we parted with sorrow,
And so I lay with her at Hockley-i’th’-hole.	40