Joseph Skipsey

A ballad

MY love at Seaton Terrace dwells,
     A hale and hearty wight,
Who lilts away the summer day,
     Also the winter night:
The merriest bird with rapture stirr’d,
     Could never yet surpass
The melody awaken’d by
     The Seaton Terrace lass!
 
She’s graceful as a lily-wand,
     Right modest too is she,
And then ye’ll search in vain the land
     To find a busier bee
Like silver clear her iron gear
     Like burnished gold, the brass—
For tidyness there’s none to peer
     The Seaton Terrace lass.
 
More restless than a clucking hen
     About her, Minnie stirs;
“Go, jewel, knit your fancy net,
     And I will scour the floors.”
“Enjoy the day, a-down the way,
     Where greenest grows the grass,
No help I need,” replies with speed
     The Seaton Terrace lass.
 
She’ll knit or sew, she’ll bake or brew—
     She’ll wash the clothes so clean,
The very daisy pales beside
     Her linen on the green;
Then what she’ll do, with ease she’ll do,
     And still her manner has
A charm, would gar a stoic woo
     The Seaton Terrace lass.
 
Discomfort flies her dark-brown eyes,
     And when the men folk come
All black and weary from the pit,
     They find a welcome home.
Her brothers tease her, and a pride,
     The father feeleth as
Again he meets again he greets
     The Seaton Terrace lass.
 
When day is past and night at last
     Begins to cloud the dell,
She’ll take her skiel and out she’ll steal,
     And meet me at the well;
Then, oh! how fleet the moments sweet—
     Yet fleeter shall they pass,
That night the Bebside laddie weds
     The Seaton Terrace lass.
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