Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Robert Louis Stevenson 1850–94

The Spaewife

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OH, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—

Why chops are guid to brander and nane sae guid to fry.

An’ siller, that ’s sae braw to keep, is brawer still to gi’e.

It ’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.

Oh, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—

Hoo a’things come to be whaur we find them when we try,

The lasses in their claes an’ the fishes in the sea.

It ’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.

Oh, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—

Why lads are a’ to sell an’lasses a’ to buy;

An’ naebody for dacency but barely twa or three.

It ’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.

Oh, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—

Gin death’s as shure to men as killin’ is to kye,

Why God has filled the yearth sae fu’ o’ tasty things to pree.

It ’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.

Oh, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—

The reason o’ the cause an’ the wherefore o’ the why,

Wi’ mony anither riddle brings the tear into my e’e.

It ’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.