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Lines on the Mermaid Tavern

from Set to the Music by Crosscurrents Music

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about

The Mermaid Tavern was a tavern in Cheapside in the Elizabethan era, located east of St. Paul's Cathedral and celebrated as a literary drinking club. The Fraternity of Sireniacal Gentlemen included Ben Jonson, John Donne, John Fletcher Francis Beaumont, and legendarily William Shakespeare. Keats compares the tavern to Elysium for "souls of poets dead and gone," only two years before his own death in 1821 at the age of 26. The tune is original. 

lyrics

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern ?

Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine ?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison ? O generous food !
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern ?

I have heard that on a day
Mine host's signboard fled away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new-old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac.

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern ?

credits

from Set to the Music, released July 24, 2021
John Keats arr. Lynn Noel

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about

Crosscurrents Music image

Crosscurrents Music Boston, Massachusetts

Lynn Noel brings traditional song and heritage arts online to create community. Lynn has a voice of striking clarity and power, equally at home in rhythmic chanteys and flowing ballads.

Lynn is a respected song session leader on both sides of the Atlantic and the producer and host of the Mermaid's Tavern online folk club. She is currently Program Chair of the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA). ... more

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