Classic Poem

Six wives I've had and they're all dead,
But I'll wager I don't have another.
I'm single again and I mean to remain
And I'll go and live with mother.

Oh the fox and the hare
And the badger and bear
And the birds of the greenwood tree,
The pretty little rabbits
Are engaging in their habits,
And they've all got a wife but me.

Oh the first on the page was little Sally Gage,
She once was a lady's maid,
And she ran away on a very dark day,
With a fellow in the fried fish trade.

Oh the next to charm was a girl on our farm,
Well versed in harrows and ploughs,
She guarded on the rigs a lot of little pigs,
And she squeezed new milk from the cows.

Oh the next was a cook, a beauty with a hook,
I'll tell you the reason why,
For a leg she'd a stump, on her neck she'd a bump,
And a naughty little squintle in her eye.

She was eighteen stone, all muscle and bone,
And she looked with an awful leer,
She would have been mine, but she fell in decline,
Through swallowing the bellows in her beer.

Oh the next to claim was a right jolly dame,
With a purse as long as your arm,
All full o' yellow gold, such a sight to behold,
And a heart so amazingly warm.

A rowley scene was a love for Jean,
Which broke her hope to the wreck,
For she slipped with her heel on a piece of orange peel,
And she fell and broke a bone in her neck.

The last I had through drink went mad,
In vain I tried to stop her,
But sad to say it was my dismay,
She got slowly boiled to death in the copper.