"Hey Nonny No!" anonymous rhyme

[Text of the rhyme from a 17th Century music manuscript, in which the rhyme was set to music by composer Nathaniel Giles]

Source of the manuscript image - Oxford, Christ Church Mus. 439: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/363ae4db-1b86-456a-a6bc-49523103e1e1/ (Christ Church Mus. 439, Item # 48 (page 51 on electronic viewer))

[Text of the rhyme from an early 20th Century anthology]

Hey nonny no!


Hey nonny no!
Men are fools that wish to die!
Is’t not fine to dance and sing
When the bells of death do ring?
Is’t not fine to swim in wine,
And turn upon the toe,
And sing hey nonny no!
When the winds blow and the seas flow?
Hey nonny no!



Source of the text - The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927, poem #59, page 90.

TJB: Pub doggerel; carpe diem but with whimsy. Questions or exclamations—the poem has no truck with mere periods, & celebrates all the nonny.