The
Recruited Mollier
Oh,
what's the matter with you, me lass,
And
were's your mollying Jimmy?
Them
soldier boys have picked him up,
And
taken him far from me,
Last
payday he went into town,
And
them redcoated fellows,
They
'ticed him in and got him drunk,
And
he's better gone to the gallows.
***
The
very sight of his cockade,
It
set us all a-crying,
And
me I nearly fainted twice,
I
thought that I was dying.
His
mollying fork is rusted o'er,
His
string redundant too,
Before
my Jimmy mollies again,
His
fork will rust right through.
***
When
Jimmy talks about the wars,
It's
worse than death to listen,
His
string was once his pride and joy,
And
bright his fork would glisten,
A
brigadier or a grenadier,
He
says they're sure to make him,
So
now he shuns his mollying fork,
And
bids me not forsake him.
***
As
I walked o'er yon stubbled field,
A
cludge I spied a-moulderin',
I
think on Jimmy mollyin' there,
If
he'd not took up soldierin'
He
once would molly all night long,
He'd
only pause for eating,
To
think my cludge was in his hands,
It
sets me heart a-beating.
***
So
take me cludge, and then it's o'er,
Oh
take me cludge my deary,
Without
a cludge there is less grief,
At
least that is the theory.
***
(Extract
from "Folk Songs of Olde Englande" - J. M. Blunt 1892)
