Old Tom
Robert William Service
The harridan who holds the inn
At which I toss a pot,
Is old and uglier than sin,—
I’m glad she knows me not.
Indeed, for me it’s hard to think,
Although my pow’s like snow,
She was the lass so fresh and pink
I courted long ago.
I wronged her, yet it’s sadly true
She wanted to be wronged:
They mostly do, although ’tis you,
The male bloke who is thonged.
Well, anyway I left her then
To sail across the sea,
And no doubt she had other men,
And soon lost sight of me.
So now she is a paunchy dame
And mistress of the inn,
With temper tart and tounge to blame,
Moustache and triple chin.
And though I have no proper home
Contentedly I purr,
And from my whiskers wipe the foam,
—Glad I did not wed her.
Yet it’s so funny sitting here
To stare into her face;
And as I raise my mug of beer
I dream of our disgrace.
And so I come and come each day
To more and more enjoy
The joke—that fifty years away
I was her honey boy.
