[Bg-dance] Fwd: If All the World Were Paper

[Tim McDaniel]

     ---------- Forwarded message ----------
     Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:57:36 -0500
     From: Charlene Charette / Perronnelle
     To: Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com>
     Subject: If All the World Were Paper

Ault, Norman; Seventeenth Century Lyrics

Wit's Recreations, 1641

If all the world were paper,
And all the sea were ink,
And all the trees were bread and cheese
What should we do for drink?

If all the world were sand-o,
Oh, then what should we lack-o?
If, as they say, there were no clay,
How should we take tobacco?

If all our vessels ran-a,
If none but had a crack-a;
If Spanish apes ate all the grapes,
How should we do for sack-a?

If friars had no bald pates,
Nor nuns had no dark cloisters;
If all the seas were beans and beans,
How should we do for oysters?

If there had been no projects,
Nor none that did great wrongs,
If fiddlers shall turn players all,
How should we do for songs?

If all things were eternal,
And nothing their end bringing;
If this should be, then how should we
Here make an end of singing?


Note:  This nonsense rhyme is entitled 'Interrogativa Cantilena' in
the text.  It was probably inspired by the following little song of an
earlier date which has survived in British Museum Add. MS. 22601, [c.
1603]:

If all the Earthe were paper white
and all the sea were incke
'Twere not inough for me to write
as my poore hart doth thinke.

The latter verses appear also in Poetical Collection cited in 'A
Short-Title List 24, 26, 31, 42, 77, 83.