Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Volume 1 by George Gilfillan
page 155 of 477 (32%)
of Dunbar's works; and in a newspaper this very day (May 23) we see another
edition announced, in a popular and modernised shape, of the poetry of this
great old Scottish _Makkar_.


THE DANCE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS THROUGH HELL.

I.

Of Februar' the fifteenth night,
Full long before the dayis light,
I lay into a trance;
And then I saw both Heaven and Hell;
Methought among the fiendis fell,
Mahoun[1] gart[2] cry a Dance,
Of shrewis[3] that were never shrevin,[4]
Against the feast of Fastern's even,
To make their observance:
He bade gallants go graith[5] a guise,[6]
And cast up gamounts[7] in the skies,
As varlets do in France.


II.
* * * * *
Holy harlottis in hautane[8] wise,
Came in with many sundry guise,
But yet laugh'd never Mahoun,
Till priests came in with bare shaven necks,
Then all the fiends laugh'd and made gecks,[9]
DigitalOcean Referral Badge