Page:National Ballad and Song (1897), vol. 1.djvu/32
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10
A MANS YARD
A MANS YARD
[c. 1600–1620]
[Rawl. MS. Poet. 216, lf. 94 back].
Reed me a ridle: what is thisYou holde in your hand when you pisse?It is a kinde of pleasing stinge,A pricking and a pleasing thing;
It is a stiffe shorte fleshly pole,That fittes to stopp a maydens hole;It is Venus wanton staying wand,That ne’re had feet, and yet can stand;
It is a penn with a hole in the toppe,To write betwene her two-leued booke;It is a thing both dumb and blinde,Yet narrowe holles in darke can finde;
It is a dwarfe in height and length,And yet a giannt in his strength;It is a bachelours button newly cutt,The finest new tobacco pipe;
It is the Zirus that makes dead vseWhen he did pull on Vulcans shooes;