My mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That, for because her livelood was but thin,

Would needs go seek her townish sister's house.
She thought herself endured too much pain;
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse

That when the furrows swimmed with the rain,
She must lie cold and wet in sorry plight;
And worse than that, bare meat there did remain

To comfort her when she her house had dight;
Sometime a barley corn; sometime a bean;
For which she laboured hard both day and night

In harvest time whilst she might go and glean;
And where store was stroyed with the flood,
Then well away! for she undone was clean.

Then was she fain to take instead of food
Sleep, if she might, her hunger to beguile.
"My sister," quod she, "hath a living good,

And hence from me she dwelleth not a mile.
In cold and storm she lieth warm and dry
In bed of down; the dirt doth not defile

Her tender foot, she laboureth not as I.
Richly she feedeth and at the richman's cost,
And for her meat she needs not crave nor cry.

By sea, by land, of the delicates, the most
Her cater seeks, and spareth for no peril.
She feedeth on boiled bacon meet and roast,

And hath thereof neither charge nor travail;
And when she l