My Love is Like a Dewdrop

My love is like a dewdrop setting out upon a thorn,
Puts it on Sunday night, takes it off Monday morn,
Carries love all in his pockets and but little in his heart,
He's a lad that loves a good many, and gives every girl her part

The first time that I met my love, 'twas in a shady grove,
And as he stepped forward, he gave to me a rose;
He thought that I'd accept of it, but no, not 1:
Before I would accept of it, I'd lay me down and die

The next time that I met my love, he asked me for the ring;
He said that I had deprived him of many a better thing;
He said that I had served him as he'd served two or three,
So I care no more about him, he may go far away.

Many a cold winter's night we sat together and chat,
But little did I like him any better for that;
His tongue, it rang too nimble, and his watch, it ran too slow,
And many a time I gave him his hat and told him for to go.

He can go home and tell his mother, and set her mind at ease
For I hear she is an old woman, very hard to please;
Talking ill of me, as they say she has done:
Oh, she need not fret herself; I wouldn't have her son

He is the son of a miser, I plainly understand,
And I am the daughter of a poor, hard working man;
He may share his gold, but I'm sure he'll not with me:
Good riddance of bad rubbish, he may go, farewell he!

I hear he has a new sweetheart, he won her by a joke;
He really thinks within his heart he does me provoke;
If he thinks he provokes me, I'll plainly let him see
That I can have a new sweetheart just as well as he.

Come all you lovesick fair ones that cured cannot be,
I'll tell you of a remedy quite satisfactory:
Take two grains of reason, and three grains of common sense
A pound of resolution, and lots of impudence!

From Folk Songs of the Catskills, Cazden Haufrecht and Studer
Collected from Mary Avery
Note: See Farewell He, and Let Him Go
RG