Harry the Tailor
(TRADITIONAL.)
[THE following song was taken down some years ago from the recitation of a country curate, who said he had learned it from a very old inhabitant of Methley, near Pontefract, Yorkshire. We have never seen it in print.]
WHEN Harry the tailor was twenty years old,He began for to look with courage so bold;He told his old mother he was not in jest,But he would have a wife as well as the rest.
Then Harry next morning, before it was day,To the house of his fair maid took his way.He found his dear Dolly a making of cheese,Says he, ‘You must give me a buss, if you please!’
She up with the bowl, the butter-milk flew,And Harry the tailor looked wonderful blue.‘O, Dolly, my dear, what hast thou done?From my back to my breeks has thy butter-milk run.’
She gave him a push, he stumbled and fellDown from the dairy into the drawwell.Then Harry, the ploughboy, ran amain,And soon brought him up in the bucket again.
Then Harry went home like a drowned rat,And told his old mother what he had been at.With butter-milk, bowl, and a terrible fall,O, if this be called love, may the devil take all!