XIV. THE CULPRIT

The night my father got me

His mind was not on me;

He did not plague his fancy

To muse if I should be

The son you see.

The day my mother bore me

She was a fool and glad,

For all the pain I cost her,

That she had borne the lad

That borne she had.

My mother and my father

Out of the light they lie;

The warrant would not find them,

And here‘ tis only I

Shall hang so high.

Oh let not man remember

The soul that God forgot,

But fetch the county kerchief

And noose me in the knot,

And I will rot.

For so the game is ended

That should not have begun.

My father and my mother

They had a likely son,

And I have none.