Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXLIX. Love And Matrimony.

                        Margaret wrote a letter,
                        Seal'd it with her finger,
                        Threw it in the dam
                        For the dusty miller.
                        Dusty was his coat,
                        Dusty was the siller,
                        Dusty was the kiss
                        I'd from the dusty miller.
                        If I had my pockets
                        Full of gold and siller,
                        I would give it all
                        To my dusty miller.

    Chorus. O the little, little,
                        Rusty, dusty, miller.

    Master I have, and I am his man,
    Gallop a dreary dun;
    Master I have, and I am his man,
    And I'll get a wife as fast as I can;
    With a heighly gaily gamberally,
        Higgledy piggledy, niggledy, niggledy,
        Gallop a dreary dun.

    There was a little pretty lad,
        And he lived by himself,
    And all the meat he got
        He put upon a shelf.

    The rats and the mice
        Did lead him such a life,
    That he went to Ireland
        To get himself a wife.

    The lanes they were so broad,
        And the fields they were so narrow,
    He couldn't get his wife home
        Without a wheelbarrow.

    The wheelbarrow broke,
        My wife she got a kick,
    The deuce take the wheelbarrow,
        That spared my wife's neck.

    "John, come sell thy fiddle,
        And buy thy wife a gown."
    "No, I'll not sell my fiddle,
        For ne'er a wife in town."

    Did you see my wife, did you see, did you see,
        Did you see my wife looking for me?
    She wears a straw bonnet, with white ribbands on it,
        And dimity petticoats over her knee.

    Jack in the pulpit, out and in;
    Sold his wife for a minikin pin.