Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green

I am a broken-hearted milkman, in grief I'm arrayed
Through keeping of the company of a young servant maid.
Who lived on board and wages the house to keep clean
In a gentleman's family near Paddington Green.

cho: She was as beautiful as a butterfly and proud as a queen,
Was pretty little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green.

She'd an ankle like an antelope and a step like a deer
A voice like a blackbird, so mellow and clear.
Her hair hung in ringlets so beautiful and long
I thought that she loved me but I found I was wrong.

When I asked her to marry me she said 'Oh what stuff',
And told me to drop it, for she'd had quite enough.
Of my nonsense -- At the same time, I'd been very kind,
But to marry a milkman she didn't feel inclined.

The words that she uttered went straight through my heart
I sobbed and I sighed, and I straight did depart.
With a tear on my eyelid as big as a bean
I bid farewell to Polly and to Paddington Green.

In six months she married, that hard-hearted girl,
But it was not a Mi-lord, and it was not an earl.
It was not a 'Baronet', but a shade or two wuss
It was a bow-legged conductor of a tupenny bus.

RG