My house was built but for a show,
My lady's empty pockets know;
And now she will not have a shilling,
To raise the stairs, or build the ceiling;
For all the courtly madams round
Now pay four shillings in the pound;
'Tis come to what I always thought:
My dame is hardly worth a groat.[2]
Had you and I been courtiers born,
We should not thus have lain forlorn;
For those we dext'rous courtiers call,
Can rise upon their masters' fall:
But we, unlucky and unwise,
Must fall because our masters rise.