Oh, Peggy Was A Jolly Lass

    'Oh, Peggy was a jolly lass,
    Ye heave ho, boys, ye heave ho!
    She never grudged her Jack a glass,
    Ye heave ho, boys, ye heave ho!
    And when he sailed the raging main,
    She faithful was unto her swain,
    Ye heave ho, boys, ye heave ho!'

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist and poet best known as the author of the novel 'Little Women' and its sequels 'Little Men' and 'Jo's Boys.' Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, she grew up in Massachusetts. She was an abolitionist and a feminist and was active in both the Transcendentalist and suffragist movements. Alcott began writing to support her family and went on to publish numerous works that have had a lasting impact on American literature.

Louisa May Alcott

Bide A Wee

Louisa May Alcott, Simple Poetry

Mary's Dream

Louisa May Alcott, Simple Poetry

Oh, Timballoo! How Happy We Are

Louisa May Alcott, Simple Poetry

Don't Drive Me Away

Louisa May Alcott, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Peggy's the Lady of the Hall

And will she leave the lowly clowns
For silk and satins gay,
Her woollen aprons and drab gowns
For lady's cold array?
And will she leave the wild hedge rose,
The redbreast and the wren,
And will she leave her Sunday beaus
And milk shed in the glen?
And will she leave her kind friends all
To be the Lady of the Hall?

The cowslips bowed their golden drops,
The white thorn white as sheets;
The lamb agen the old ewe stops,
The wren and robin tweets.
And Peggy took her milk pails still,
And sang her evening song,
To milk her cows on Cowslip Hill
For half the summer long.
But silk and satins rich and rare
Are doomed for Peggy still to wear.

But when the May had turned to haws,
The hedge rose swelled to hips,
Peggy was missed ...

John Clare

And If Your Nancy Frowns, My Lad

    '"And if your Nancy frowns, my lad,
    And scorns a jacket blue,
    Just hoist your sails for other ports,
    And find a maid more true."'

Louisa May Alcott

Huggins And Duggins. - Pastoral, After Pope.

Two swains or clowns - but call them swains -
Whilst keeping flocks on Salisbury plains,
For all that tend on sheep as drovers
Are turned to songsters or to lovers,
Each of the lass he call'd his dear,
Began to carol loud and clear.
First Huggins sang, and Duggins then,
In the way of ancient shepherd men;
Who thus alternate hitched in song,
"All things by turns, and nothing long."


HUGGINS.

Of all the girls about our place,
There's one beats all in form and face;
Search through all Great and Little Bumpstead,
You'll only find one Peggy Plumstead.


DUGGINS.

To groves and streams I tell my flame,
I make the cliffs repeat her name;
When I'm inspired by gills and noggins,
The rocks re-echo Sally Hoggins!

...

Thomas Hood

Peggy

Peggy said good morning and I said good bye,
When farmers dib the corn and laddies sow the rye.
Young Peggy's face was common sense and I was rather shy
When I met her in the morning when the farmers sow the rye.

Her half laced boots fit tightly as she tripped along the grass,
And she set her foot so lightly where the early bee doth pass.
Oh Peggy was a young thing, her face was common sense,
I courted her about the spring and loved her ever thence.

Oh Peggy was the young thing and bonny as to size;
Her lips were cherries of the spring and hazel were her eyes.
Oh Peggy she was straight and tall as is the poplar tree,
Smooth as the freestone of the wall, and very dear to me.

Oh Peggy's gown was chocolate and full of cherries white;
I keep a bit on't for her ...

John Clare

Young Peggy.

Tune - "Last time I cam o'er the muir."


I.

    Young Peggy blooms our bonniest lass,
        Her blush is like the morning,
    The rosy dawn, the springing grass,
        With early gems adorning:
    Her eyes outshone the radiant beams
        That gild the passing shower,
    And glitter o'er the crystal streams,
        And cheer each fresh'ning flower.

II.

    Her lips, more than the cherries bright,
        A richer dye has graced them;
    They charm th' admiring gazer's sight,
        And sweetly tempt to taste them:
    Her smile is, as the evening mild,
        When feather'd tribes are courting,
    And little lambkins wanton wild,
        In playful bands disporting.

III.

    Were...

Robert Burns

Oh, Timballoo! How Happy We Are

    "Oh, Timballoo! how happy we are,
    We live in a sieve and a crockery jar!
    And all night long, in the starlight pale,
    We sail away, with a pea-green sail,
    And whistle and warble a moony song
    To the echoing sound of a coppery gong.
    Far and few, far and few
    Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
    Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
    And they went to sea in a sieve."

Louisa May Alcott