In British Museum Addit. MS. 34360 on folio 22 occurs one stanza of rime royal entitled “The question of halsam.” It is smooth in meter, well-balanced in thought, and practically perfect in stanza form, comparing very favorably in these respects with other minor lyrics of the early fifteenth century. The popularity of this poem is attested by its presence in many manuscripts of that century and by the fact that Caxton printed it together with a second seven-line stanza also ascribed to Halsham. Both of these lyrics are found in Bodley 3896, f. 195a (MS. Fairfax 16), which affords not only the earliest, but the most authentic text of these pieces:
The worlde so wide / thaire so remuable
The sely man / so litel of stature
The grove and grounde / of clothinge so mutable
The fire so hoote / and subtil of nature
The water neuer in oon / what creature
That made is of these foure / thus flyttyng
May stedfast be as here / in his lyving
The more I goo / the ferther I am behinde
The ferther behinde / the ner my wayes ende
The more I seche / þe worse kan I fynde
The lighter leve / the lother for to wende
The bet y serve / the more al out of mynde
Is thys ffortune not I / or infortune
Though I go lowse / tyed am I with a Lune