My Louis loved me oh so well
 And spiered me for his wife;
He would have haled me from the hell
 That was my bawdy life:
The mother of his bairns to be,
 Daftlike he saw in me.
 
But I, a hizzie of the town
 Just telt him we must part;
Loving too well to drag him down
 I tore him from my heart:
To save the honour of his name
 I went back to my shame.

They say he soared to starry fame,
 Romance flowed from his pen;
A prince of poets he became,
 Pride of his fellow men:
My breast was pillow for his head,
 Yet naught of his I've read.

Smoking my cutty pipe the while,
 In howths of Leith I lag;
* My Louis lies in South Sea isle
 As I a sodden hag
Live on . . . Oh Love, by men enskied
 The day you went--I died.


*R.L.S.