How like ye this song, my own sweet rose?
Is it well made for our purpose?
YOUNG WOMAN. I never heard in all my life a better,
More pleasant, more meet for the matter;
Now let us go then, the morning is nigh gone,
We cannot any longer here remain:
Farewell, good masters every one,
Till from the church we come again.
[_Here they go out, and in cometh the Priest alone_.
PRIEST. Sirs, by my troth it is a world to see[339]
The exceeding negligence of every one,
Even from the highest to the lowest degree
Both goodness and conscience is clean gone.
There is a young gentleman in this town,
Who this same day now must be married:
Yet though I would bestow a crown,
That knave the clerk cannot be spied;
For he is safe, if that in the alehouse
He may sit tippling of nut-brown ale,
That oft he comes forth as drunk as a mouse,
With a nose of his own not greatly pale;
And this is not once, but every day
Almost, of my faith, throughout the whole year,
That he these tricks doth use to play,
Without all shame, dread and fear.
He knoweth himself, that yesternight
The said young gentleman came to me,
And then desired that he might
This morning betimes married be;
But now I doubt it will be high noon,
Ere that his business be quite ended,
Unless the knavish fool come very soon,
That this same thing may be despatched;
And therefore, since that this naughty pack
Hath at this present me thus served,
He is like henceforward my good-will to lack,
Or else unwise I might be judged.
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