Four Popular Songs (8)/What's a Woman Like?

by Anonymous

WHAT’S A WOMAN LIKE?

A woman is like to—but stay—
What a woman is like who can say

There's no living with or without on a—
Love bites like a fly,
Now an ear now an eye,
Buz buz, always buzzing about one.
When she's tender and kind,
She is like to my mind,
(And Fanny was so I remember)
She's like to-oh dear!
She's as good, very near,
As a ripe melting peach in December.
If she laugh and she chat,
Play, joke. and all that,
Ann with smiles and good humour she meet me,
She like a rich dish
Of ven'son or fish,
That cries from the table come eat me.
But she'll plague you and vex you,
Distract and perplex you,
False hearted and ranging,
Unsettled and changing,
What then do you thing she is like?
Like a sand? Like a rock?
Like a wheel? like a clock?
Ay! like a clock that is always at strike,
Her head's like the island folks tell on.
Which nothing but monkey's can dwell on,
Her heart's like a lemon so nice,
She carves for each lover a slice,
In truth she's to me
Like the wind, like the sea,
Whose raging will hearken to no man;
Like a mill, like a pill,
Like a flail, like a whale,
Like an ass, like a glass,
Whose image is constant to no man;
Like a flower like a shower,
Like a fly, like a pye,
lake a pea, like a flea,
Like a thief, like—in brief,
She's like nothing on earth—but a ⟨woman.⟩