RIDING to London, on Dunstable way | |
| I met with a Maid on Midsummer day, | |
| Her Eyes they did sparkle like Stars in the sky, | |
| Her face it was fair, and her forehead was high: | |
| The more I came to her, the more I did view her, | 5 |
| The better I lik’d her pretty sweet face, | |
| I could not forbear her, but still I drew near her, | |
| And then I began to tell her my case: | |
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| Whither walk’st thou, my pretty sweet soul? | |
| She modestly answer’d to Hockley-i’th-hole. | 10 |
| I ask’d her her business; she had a red cheek, | |
| She told me, she went a poor service to seek; | |
| I said, it was pity she should leave the City, | |
| And settle herself in a Country Town; | |
| She said it was certain it was her hard fortune | 15 |
| To go up a maiden, and so to come down. | |
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| With that I alighted, and to her I stept, | |
| I took her by th’ hand, and this pretty maid wept; | |
| Sweet, weep not, quoth I: I kissed her soft lip; | |
| I wrung her by the hand, and my finger she nipped; | 20 |
| So long there I wooed her, such reasons I shewed her, | |
| That she my speeches could not control, | |
| But curtsied finely, and got up behind me, | |
| And back she rode with me to Hockley-i’th’-hole. | |
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| When I came to Hockley at the sign of the Cock, | 25 |
| By a lighting I chanced to see her white smock, | |
| It lay so alluring upon her round knee, | |
| I call for a Chamber immediately; | |
| I hugged her, I tugged her, I kissed her, I smugged her, | |
| And gently I laid her down on a bed, | 30 |
| With nodding and pinking, with sighing and winking, | |
| She told me a tale of her Maidenhead. | |
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| While she to me this story did tell, | |
| I could not forbear, but on her I fell; | |
| I tasted the pleasure of sweetest delight, | 35 |
| We took up our lodging, and lay there all night; | |
| With soft arms she rouled me, and ofttimes told me, | |
| She loved me dearly, even as her own soul: | |
| But on the next morrow we parted with sorrow, | |
| And so I lay with her at Hockley-i’th’-hole. | 40 |
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