[5]
But when I had silver and gold in my fist,
O then she would meet me and give me a kiss;
But now my money’s gone and my pockets empty,
See how the dissembler frowns upon me.
So now fellow-drunkards, you fee how I’m us’d,
When my money’s all gone then I am abus’d;
But now tor her sauce, I wiser shall be,
I will think on my wife and my family.
I’ll go home to my wife & children who are poor,
I us’d to abuse her and call her a whore;
The more I said to her, the more she did cry,
O what a filly drunkard and blockhead was I
But if I had been rul’d by my wife at the first,
I might have had silver and gold in my purse,
For to maintain my wife and children small,
But I prov’d a drunkard and ruin’d them all.
But now I’ll refrain, it’s high time to amend,
My money I’ll save, it will be my bell friend;
But to speak of the ale-wives, how oft I them fed,
While my wife & children were starving for bread.
Come all you drunkards take warning by me,
Your folly in time I would have you to fee;
And ail you in youth who’ve your time to begin,
Pray think of yourselves, let the landladies spin.
THE CHOICE OF A WIFE.
IN city, town, & village, my fancy oft has mov’d,
A Phillis and a Chloe, I ev’ry where have lov'd,
But, tir’d with variety, to marriage I’m inclin’d,
Would fortune only grant me a partner to my mind.
Then I’d go no more a roving,
But constant as the dove,
My time I’d pass with such a lass,
In harmony and love.Then, &c.
