Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXCIII. Love And Matrimony.

    As I was going up Pippen-hill,
        Pippen-hill was dirty,
    There I met a pretty miss,
        And she dropt me a curtsey.

    Little miss, pretty miss,
        Blessings light upon you!
    If I had half-a-crown a day,
        I'd spend it all on you.

    What care I how black I be,
    Twenty pounds will marry me;
    If twenty won't, forty shall,
    I am my mother's bouncing girl!

    Rosemary green,
        And lavender blue,
    Thyme and sweet marjoram,
        Hyssop and rue.

    Did you see my wife, did you see, did you see,
        Did you see my wife looking for me?
    She wears a straw bonnet, with white ribbands on it,
        And dimity petticoats over her knee.

    Saw ye aught of my love a coming from ye market!
        A peck of meal upon her back,
        A babby in her basket;
    Saw ye aught of my love a coming from the market?

    It's once I courted as pretty a lass,
    As ever your eyes did see;
    But now she's come to such a pass,
    She never will do for me.
    She invited me to her own house,
    Where oft I'd been before,
    And she tumbled me into the hog-tub,
    And I'll never go there any more.