Tom o’ Bedlam (Anonymous, ca. 1600–1620)

The complete poem Tom o’ Bedlam, in its most complete and recognized version (the one found in the Percy Folio Manuscripts, ca. 1620). It is an anonymous text and one of the great classics of pre-modern English poetry. From the hag and hungry goblin That into rags would rend ye, All the spirits that stand By the naked man, In the book of moons, defend ye! That of your five sound senses You never be forsaken, Nor travel from yourselves with Tom Abroad to beg your bacon.   Who would be a king in a beggar’s ring,   Or a lord in chains of freedom?     But I’ll not part with my Bedlam heart,     Nor the song that the moon sings me. --- I sleep not where I eat not, Nor dwell where I beg bread; Nor beg I from the proud rich man, But from the careless head. I dwell in no high palaces, Nor yet in lowly cell; But in the air, when the moon shines fair, I do my dwelling tell.   With spirits and stars I mix my jars,   And my dreams they do forsake me;     For the sun and the moon are my father and my noon,     And the night’s wind’s voice shall wake me. --- When I short have shaven my crown, And strove to make me wise, I find myself a better fool Than ever I was thrice. I see the world as in a glass, And all men as they seem; For who was ever sober yet That saw not life a dream?   O fools, ye wise! I see your eyes,   And the world in rags before me;     And I laugh like fire at your vain desire,     For the Bedlam moon rides o’er me. --- 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 wild world’s end— Methinks it is no journey.   Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes   To save her shoes from gravel;     But where she goes, no mortal knows,     Nor what poor Tom doth travel. --- No gypsy nor no fairy Shall make my fate their care; But I’ll be free as the moonlit sea, And the winds that shake my hair. The foxes have their holes, I know, And birds their nests for sleeping; But I have none, save the shining sun, And the stars their watches keeping.   For I am mad, and my heart is glad,   And I drink the night’s cold water;     And I know no fear, though the fiends be near,     Or the Devil’s self come after. --- Now to the house of Bedlam Where all things are confusion, Where stone walls shake and reason breaks, And faith becomes illusion; There will I sing till the daylight bring The dawn upon my sorrow; For mad Tom’s song is a dream too long To end before tomorrow.   Still I cry in the wind, “The moon’s my mind!”   And my staff the stars have given;     And my bed’s the ground where lost souls are found,     And my soul’s the road to Heaven.