I know a woman’s portion when she loves, It’s hers to give, my darling, not to take; It isn’t lockets, dear, nor pairs of gloves, It isn’t marriage bells nor wedding cake, It’s up and cook, although the belly ache; And bear the child, and up and work again, And count a sick man’s grumble worth the pain.
Will she do this, and fifty times as much?’ ’No. I don’t ask her.’ ’No. I warrant, no. She’s one to get a young fool in her clutch, And you’re a fool to let her trap you so. She love you? She? O Jimmy, let her go; I was so happy, dear, before she came, And now I’m going to the grave in shame.
I bore you, Jimmy, in this very room. For fifteen years I got you all you had, You were my little son, made in my womb, Left all to me, for God had took your dad, You were a good son, doing all I bade, Until this strumpet came from God knows where, And now you lie, and I am in despair.
Jimmy, I won’t say more. I know you think That I don’t know, being just a withered old, With chaps all fallen in and eyes that blink, And hands that tremble so they cannot hold. A bag of bones to put in churchyard mould, A red-eyed hag beside your evening star.’ And Jimmy gulped, and thought ’By God, you are.’
’Well, if I am, my dear, I don’t pretend. I got my eyes red, Jimmy, making you. My dear, before our love time’s at an end Think just a minute what it is you do. If this were right, my dear, you’d tell me true; You don’t, and so it’s wrong; you lie; and she Lies too, or else you wouldn’t lie to me.
Women and men have only got one way And that way’s marriage; other ways are lust. If you must marry this one, then you may, If not you’ll drop her.’ ’No.’ ’I say you must. Or bring my hairs with sorrow to the dust. Marry your whore, you’ll pay, and there an end. My God, you shall not have a whore for friend.
By God, you shall not, not while I’m alive. Never, so help me God, shall that thing be. If she’s a woman fit to touch she’ll wive, If not she’s whore, and she shall deal with me. And may God’s blessed mercy help us see And may He make my Jimmy count the cost, My little boy who’s lost, as I am lost.’
People in love cannot be won by kindness, And opposition makes them feel like martyrs. When folk are crazy with a drunken blindness, It’s best to flog them with each other’s garters, And have the flogging done by Shropshire carters, Born under Ercall where the while stones lie; Ercall that smells of honey in July.