Page:Fair maid in bedlam, or, The deceitful Irish boy.pdf/6

 Sir the lads of sweet Newry are all roving blades,

And take great delight in courting fair maids,

Tbey kiss them & press them, & call them their own,

And perhaps your darling lies mourning at home.

Believe me my jewel, the case is not so,

I never was married, the truth you must know,

So these strangers agreed as the case it is known,

And I wish them both happy & safe to their home.



HEN young and artless as the lamb,

Which plays about its fondling dam,

Brisk, buxom, pert, and silly;

I slighted all the manly swains,

And put my virgin heart in chains,

For smiling smooth fac’d Willy.

But when experience came with years,

Which rais’d my hopes and quell’d my fears,

My heart was blythe and bonny,

I turn'd off every beardless youth,

So gave my word, and fix’d my truth

On honest sturdy Johnny.

Next at the wake I saw the ’Squire,

For love I felt a new desire,

Fond to outshine my mammy,

I sigh’d for fringes, frogs, and bea,

For pig-tail wigs, and powder’d clothes,

And silken master Sammy.

For riches next I set a flame,

Old Gripus to my cottage came,

And held an amorous parley.

For music next I chanc’d to burn,

And fondly listen’d in my turn,

To warbling quivering Charley.