Limbo
By the same Author.
Tune.—On a time I was great, now little I’m grown.
I’ll tell you a story, if you please to attend,
When my heart was afflicted with sorrow,
The song it is new, but it’s absolute true;
It’s for nothing that I did buy or borrow:
But I was sent for to Preston’s one day the last week,
There I little expected with what I did meet,
But the country’s all rogues, and the world is a cheat,
And there they confin’d me in Limbo.
Like an innocent lamb to the slaughter I went,
Not knowing what was their intention,
But when I came there, O how I did stare,
When I found out their damned invention.
There was Preston the bailiff, Joe Craggs was his bum,
And there they did seize me, as sure as a gun,
Upstairs then they haul’d me into the back room,
And there they confin’d me in Limbo.
My belly was empty, though my stomach was full,
For to think there how I was trepanned,
Preston pull’d out a paper and made a long scrawl,
And he forc’d me to set my hand to’t.
Then I open’d his closet, I got out a pie,
Then I call’d for liquor, while I was a dry,
I knew somebody would pay for’t, but what cared I?
I wasn’t to starve, though in Limbo.
Another poor fellow there happen’d to be,
Which they had confined in Limbo;
Brother prisoner, says I, how shall we get free,
For want of this thing called rhino?
The poor fellow sat like one was half dead,
Then I gave him claret to dye his nose red;
But I never knew yet how the reck’ning was paid;
I was resolv’d to live well, though in Limbo.
There was Mr Bum and I, we toss’d it about,
Until we began to grow mellow;
Three bottles of claret he there did me give,
Indeed he’s a jolly good fellow:
Full bumpers of claret went round it is true,
Some drank for vexation till twice they did spew,
I ne’er in my life saw so merry a crew,
As we were when I was in Limbo.
There was Ralph Jackson, the tanner, he came in by chance,
And did chatter and talk like a parrot;
And likewise Will Bulmer was one of our number,
For he had a mind to drink claret.
Full glasses went round till I could not see,
O then they were all willing I should go free;
But the devil may pay them their reckoning for me,
For now I have got out of Limbo.
With many a foul step then I stagger’d home,
And it happen’d to be without falling;
I got on my bed, and nothing I said,
But my wife she began with her bawling;
She rung me such a peal, though she’d been not well,
As if she would have rais’d all the devils in hell,
You might have heard her as far as the sound of Bow Bell;
Then I wish’d that I’d stay’d there in Limbo.