Five Excellent New Songs (1783)/Malton Lordship

Since I am deprived of my fancy so fair,
Farewel Malton-Lordship, and all beauties there;
Your streets, & your broad-streets, I often have trode,
But I can stay no longer there to make my abode.

But the leaving of you all, it grieves me full sore,
My true love is one thing that grieves me much more,
The dear girl that I love, I never can enjoy,
Oh such a sad lamenting case would any man destroy.

I wish my swaddling clothes my grave clothes had been,
My baptism day, my burial had been;
I never wou’d have known such sorrow, grief, & woe,
This pretty fair maid’s answer was always no no.

Many, many is the time I’ve rapped at the door,
With my holiday clothes, with snow all cov'red o’er;
But yet she proves to me like the cooling of the day;
For the sake of my false lover, I must go away.

Woe come on this poverty, for it’s the want of cash,
Makes many a bonny laddie to want his bonny lass:
The emptiness of my pocket makes me want my joy,
Oh such a sad tormenting case, would any lad destroy.

I’ve travell’d thro’ Englaed, thro’ France & Spain,
But now I’m return’d to Malton Lordship again:
It is far better for to be where cannon bullets fly,
Than for to be in any false woman’s company.