To find Mad Tom of Bedlam Ten thousand years I traveled Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes To save her shoes from gravel.
Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys Bedlam boys are bonny For they all go bare and they live by the air And they want no drink nor money.
Alternative Corus While I do sing, any food Feeding drink or clothing? Come dame or maid, be not afraid, Poor Tom will injure nothing. "While I do sing" can alternate with "And I do Sing", "But I do sing", "Although I sing", "Yet I do sing".
Another Alternative Corus But I will find Bonny Maud, merry mad Maud And seek whate'er betides her Yet I will love beneath or above The dirty earth that hides her.
I went down to Satan's kitchen To break my fast one morning And there I got souls piping hot All on the spit a-turning.
There I took a cauldron Where boiled ten thousand harlots Though full of flame I drank the same To the health of all such varlets.
My staff has murdered giants My bag a long knife carries To cut mince pies from children's thighs For which to feed the fairies.
No gypsy, slut or doxy Shall win my mad Tom from me I'll weep all night, with stars I'll fight The fray shall well become me.
From the hag and hungry goblin That into rags would rend ye, All the sprites that stand by the naked man In the book of moons, defend ye.
With a thought I took for Maudlin, And a cruse of cockle pottage, With a thing thus tall, Sky bless you all, I befell into this dotage.
I slept not since the Conquest, Till then I never waked, Till the naked (rougish) boy of love where I lay Me found and stript me naked.
I know more than Apollo, For oft when he lies sleeping I see the stars at mortal wars In the wounded welkin weeping.
The moon embrace her shepherd, And the Queen of Love her warrior, While the first doth horn the star of morn, And the next the heavenly farrier.
Of thirty years have I Twice twenty been enrag d And of forty been three times fifteen In durance soundly cag d
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam With stubble soft and dainty, Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips, ding-dong, With wholesome hunger plenty.
When I short have shorn my sour-face(sow's face)(sowce face) And swigged my horny barrel In an oaken inn, I pound my skin As a suit of gilt apparel.
The moon's my constant mistress, And the lonely owl my marrow; The flaming drake and the night crow make Me music to my sorrow.
The spirits white as lightening Would on my travels guide me The stars would shake and the moon would quake Whenever they espied me.
And then that I'll be murdering The Man in the Moon to the powder His staff I'll break, his dog I'll shake And there'll howl no demon louder.
With a host of furious fancies, Whereof I am commander, With a burning spear and a horse of air To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghosts and shadows I summoned am to tourney Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end- Methinks it is no journey.
The palsy plagues my pulses When I prig your pigs or pullen Your culvers take, or matchless make Your Chanticleer or sullen.
When I want provant, with Humphry I sup, an when benighted I repose in Paul's with waking souls, Yet never am affrighted.
The Gipsys, Snap and Pedro Are none of Tom's comradoes, The punk I scorn, and the cutpurse sworn And the roaring boy's bravadoes.
The meek, the white, the gentle, Me handle not nor spare not; But those that cross Tom Rhinoceros(Rynosseross) Do what the panther dare not
That of your five sound senses You never be forsaken, Nor wander from your selves with Tom Abr