People in love cannot be won by kindness, And opposition makes them feel like martyrs. When folk are crazy with a drunken blindness, It’s best to flog them with each other’s garters, And have the flogging done by Shropshire carters, Born under Ercall where the while stones lie; Ercall that smells of honey in July. Jimmy said nothing in reply, but thought That mother was an old, hard jealous thing. ’I’ll love my girl through good and ill report, I shall be true whatever grief it bring.’ And in his heart he heard the death-bell ring For mother’s death, and thought what it would be To bury her in churchyard and be free. He saw the narrow grave under the wall, Home without mother nagging at his dear, And Anna there with him at evenfall, Bidding him dry his eyes and be of cheer. ’The death that took poor mother brings me near, Nearer than we have ever been before, Near as the dead one came, but dearer, more.’ ’Good-night, my son,’ said mother. ’Night,’ he said. He dabbed her brow wi’s lips and blew the light, She lay quite silent crying on the bed, Stirring no limb, but crying through the night. He slept, convinced that he was Anna’s knight. And when he went to work he left behind Money for mother crying herself blind. After that night he came to Anna’s call, He was a fly in Anna’s subtle weavings, Mother had no more share in him at all; All that the mother had was Anna’s leavings. There were more lies, more lockets, more deceivings, Taunts from the proud old woman, lies from him, And Anna’s coo of ’Cruel. Leave her, Jim.’ Also the foreman spoke: ’You make me sick, You come-day-go-day-God-send-plenty-beer. You put less mizzle on your bit of Dick, Or get your time, I’ll have no slackers here, I’ve had my eye on you too long, my dear.’ And Jimmy pondered while the man attacked, ’I’d see her all day long if I were sacked.’ And trembling mother thought, ’I’ll go to see’r. She’d give me back my boy if she were told Just what he is to me, my pretty dear: She wouldn’t leave me starving in the cold, Like what I am.’ But she was weak and old. She thought, ’But if I ask her, I’m afraid He’d hate me ever after,’ so she stayed. IV Bessie, the gipsy, got with child by Ern, She joined her tribe again at Shepherd’s Meen, In that old quarry overgrown with fern, Where goats are tethered on the patch of green. There she reflected on the fool she’d been, And plaited kipes and waited for the bastard, And thought that love was glorious while it lasted. And Ern the moody man went moody home, To that most gentle girl from Ercall Hill, And bade her take a heed now he had come, Or else, by cripes, he’d put her through the mill. He didn’t want her love, he’d had his fill, Thank you, of her, the bread and butter sack. And Anna heard that Shepherd Ern was back.