In Trouble / Edith Nesbit

It's all for nothing: I've lost him now.

I suppose it had to be;

But oh, I never thought it of him,

Nor he never thought it of me.

And all for a kiss on your evening out,

And a field where the grass was down . . .

And he 'as gone to God-knows-where,

And I may go on the town.

The worst of all was the thing he said

The night that he went away;

He said he'd 'a married me right enough

If I hadn't 'a been so gay.

Me--gay! When I'd cried, and I'd asked him not,

But he said he loved me so;

An' whatever he wanted seemed right to me . . .

An' how was a girl to know?

Well, the river is deep, and drowned folk sleep sound,

An' it might be the best to do;

But when he made me a light-o'-love

He made me a mother too.

I've had enough sin to last my time,

If 'twas sin as I got it by,

But it ain't no sin to stand by his kid

And work for it till I die.

But oh! the long days and the death-long nights

When I feel it move and turn,

And cry alone in my single bed

And count what a girl can earn

To buy the baby the bits of things

HE ought to ha' bought, by rights;

And wonder whether he thinks of Us . . .

And if he sleeps sound o' nights.