Poetry Archives

My Louis loved me oh so well
      And spiered me for his wife;
He would have haled me from the hell
      That was my bawdy life:
The mother of his bairns to be,
      Daftlike he saw in me.

But I, a hizzie of the town
      Just telt him we must part;
Loving too well to drag him down
      I tore him from my heart:
To save the honour of his name
      I went back to my shame.

They say he soared to starry fame,
      Romance flowed from his pen;
A prince of poets he became,
      Pride of his fellow men:
My breast was pillow for his head,
      Yet naught of his I’ve read.

Smoking my cutty pipe the while,
      In howths of Leith I lag;
* My Louis lies in South Sea isle
      As I a sodden hag
Live on . . . Oh Love, by men enskied
      The day you went—I died.


*R.L.S.