SALLY GRAY.
O David, I’ll tell you a secret,
If you'll keep it close in your breast,
I would not for all Elsdon parish,
It came to the cars of the rest.
I’ll lay you a bet or a wager.
A groat to your two pence I'll lay,
You cannot guess who I'm in love with,
If you keep off sweet Sally Gray.
There's many come into the nation.
But few with my Sally can match;
There’s many come to her a-wooin’.
And O but it makes me right vext!
For Sally sits spinning and singing
Of her Jemmy all the whole day.
And I myself keep by the hay-stack,
And fain would see sweet Sally Gray.
She’s sixteen years last Collop-Monday,
And I am the very same age;
And O for a kiss of my Sally;
I would give half-a-year's wage!
When I look to the bonny black mountains.
And over the hills away.
There's not such a place in-the nation.
For there lives my sweet Sally Gray.
If you'd been at the kirk the last Sunday,
You would not have minded the text,
She sat beside Tom in the morning.
And O but I was e’en right vext!
And at they pass’d thro’ the green meadows,
I said It’s a very wet day;
might have said more but how could I,
For thinking on sweet Sally Gray.
I went down to Tom in the lonning,
To hear all the cracks and the jokes,
And there was a man telling fortunes,
And I must be like other folk:
With chalk, and a pair of old bellows,
Two letters he rote in my way,
S stands for Sally all the world over
And nothing but G stands for Gray.
You talk of your Carlisle lasses,
With ribbands and targets of lace,
scuh a' sae pale looking creatures,
There’s ne’er a bit red in their face:
But Sally's skin’s like alabster,
Her cheeks like the roses in May !
O man! I could stand here for ever,
And talk about sweet Sally Gray.
Was I some rich Duke or great Lord,
Or some Parliament man of renown,
I would hire a coach and six horses,
To carry my Sally to town.
I would lure a coach and six horses,
And make them keep out of the way;
I would jump on behind like a footman,
All for my sweet Sally Gray.