How could you say there was many wives that did drink, rant, and sing, When I protest there’s not any of us that practice this thing? Are we not forced to borrow, being left here without chink? ’Tis in a cup of cold sorrow if we so often do drink. Tho’ we have little to nourish us while our husbands are there, Merchants in London they flourish through their industrious care. They are the stay of the nation, men of undaunted renown; Why should a false accusation run the poor seamen’s wives down, Saying we swallow’d our liquor with a great gossipping crew, Making our tongues to run quicker then they had reason to do? Thus they would blast all our glory by the soft wits of their brains. He that invented that story was but a fool for his pains. We are so far from such pleasure, making of jolly punch-bowls, That we lament out of measure, every woman condoles; When she in bed should lye sleeping, if the high winds they do roar, There she in sorrow is weeping, fearing to see him no more. They are to dangers exposed, as we may very well guess. How can our eye-lids be closed in such a time of distress? You that are free from that [terror], having your husbands secure, Little consider the horror that we do dayly endure. Tho’ there is joy in our meeting when they come safe from the main, Yet ’tis a sorrowful greeting when we are parted again: Landmen in a full fruition feeds on the fat of the land; This is a happy condition, having all things at command. Tho’ we have not such a plenty, yet I can very well prove That there is not one in twenty but who her husband doth love: You that have caus’d those distractions, writing a story not true, May be asham’d of your actions, and thus I bid you adieu. _BILLY THE MIDSHIPMAN’S WELCOME HOME._ To the Tune of _Ianthe_, etc. MOLLY. You’re welcome, my Billy, to the English shore; I hope you’ll not cross the rough seas any more. Many a day too, and many a night, My heart grieved sore ’cause you were out of sight; But now, to my comfort, I see you again. Oh, never, dear Billy, Oh, never, dear Billy, Sail more on the main. BILLY. Dear Molly, said Billy, the joy of my heart, Daily I thought of you since we did part; And when the roaring waves mounting high they did move, In the greatest danger I thought on my love. The billows did foam, and the rocks they were nigh, Yet nothing but death, yet nothing but death Shall my love part and I. MOLLY. I thank thee, my dear, for thy firm love to me In the midst of thy dangers upon the rough sea; Each night in my bed still as down I was lain I dreamed of shipwracks upon the salt main; But now I do find from these dangers I’m free, Since him that I love, since him that I love Is come safe unto me. BILLY.