Tottel sig. Mir

[sig. Mir]

Of the mother that eat her
childe at the seige of
Ierusalem. +

I N doubtfull breast whiles motherly pity +With furious famine standeth at debate, The mother sayth: O chyld vnhappy Returne thy bloud where thou hadst milke of late (5) Yeld me those limmes that I made vnto thee, And enter there where thou were generate. For one of body against all nature, To an other must I make sepulture.

Of the meane and sure estate
writen to Iohn Poins. +

M Y mothers maides when they do sowe and spinne: They sing a song made of the feldishe mouse: That forbicause her liuelod was but thinne, Would nedes go se her townish sisters house, (5) She thought, her selfe endured to greuous paine, The stormy blastes her caue so sore dyd sowse: That when the furrowes swimmed with the raine: She must lie colde, and wet in sory plight. And worse then that, bare meat there did remaine (10) To comfort her, when she her house had dight: Sometime a barly corne: sometime a beane: For which she laboured hard both day and night, In haruest time, while she might go and gleane. And when her store was stroyed with the floode: (15) Then weleaway for she vndone was cleane. Then was she faine to take in stede of fode, Slepe if she might, her honger to begile. My sister (quod she) hath a liuing good: And hence from me she dwelleth not a mile. (20) In colde and storme, she lieth warme and dry, In bed of downe: the durt doth not defile Her tender fote, she labours not as I,