A True Welsh Story.

Ye fun-loving fellows for comical tales,
Match this if you can, truly current in Wales;
The Bible so old, and the Testament new,
Having none more authentic, more faithful or true.

Four frisky maidens, young, handsome and plump,
Who could each crack a flea on their bubbies or rump,
Took it into their heads just to bother the tail
Of Ned Natty, a groom, so they jalap'd his ale.

Now Ned on red herrings that evening did sup,
So he drank every drop of the gripe-giving cup.
Soon his guts 'gan to grumble and shortly Ned found
His bowels give way, and his body unbound;

The buckskin's gay leather, by gallus confin'd,
Could not be cut down till indecently lined;
This made Neddy's Pego, accustomed to sprout,
Shrink into his belly, and turn up his snout.

The time this damn'd jalap in Ned's belly lurked,
No post horse like Neddy was ever so worked.
Three nights and three days he lay squirting in bed.
And neither could hold up his tail nor his head.

The storm at length ceasing, purg'd Ned 'gan to think
On some revenge sweet for this damnable stink;
"For I'm damn'd," exclaimed Ned, "if these bitches shan't find,
That I'm cabbaged before, tho' I'm loosened behind."

'Twas early one mom, exercising his steed,
Ned saw an old gipsy-hag crossing the mead.
Straight he hailed her and said: "Woman, where do you hie?"
She replied: "To tell fortunes of females hard by."

Now these females Ned found were his japlaping friends,
So he thought it the season to make them amends.
Then he brib'd for the cant and the gipsy's old clothes.
Thus equipped, said Ned: "Trick for trick: damn me, here goes!"

First Molly, the cook-maid, he took by the hand,
From her greasy palm told her what fortune had plann'd.
She was soon to be married, each year have a brat.
"Indeed," cried the cooky, "how can you tell that?"

"I'll tell you the number," said Ned, "let me see
The blue vein that's low plac'd 'twixt the navel and knee."
When she pulled up her clothes, Ned exclaimed: "I declare
Your blue vein I can't see, 'tis so cover'd with hair."

Next dairy-maid Dolly, of lechery full,
Swore she was then breeding, for she'd had the bull.
To the gipsy, said Doll: "Can you, old woman, tell.
Whether bull or cow-calf makes my belly so swell?"

When he viewed her blue vein, he said, "Doll by my troth,
You must find out two fathers, for you will have both."
For the squire and the curate, when heated with ale,
Doll Dairy had milk'd in her amorous pail.

Now Kitty the housemaid, so frisky and fair,
Who smelt none the sweeter for carrotty hair,
Presenting her palm to the gipsy so shrewd,
Was candidly told that her nature was lewd.

While feeling the vein near her gold-girded nick,
Kate played the old gipsy a slippery trick,
So that Kate, who had ne'er been consider'd a whore,
Was told she'd miscarried the morning before.

Then came Peggy the prude, who no bawdy could bear,
Yet would tickle the lap-dog while combing his hair.
"Is the butler my sweetheart," said Peggy, "sincere,
And shall we be married, pray, gipsy, this year?"

Quoth the gipsy: "You'll have him for better or worse,
But you'll find that his corkscrew is not worth a curse.
So when you are wed, 'twill be o'er the town talk'd:
There goes Peggy, a bottle, most damnably cork'd."

Now Ned, thus revenged, bid the maidens good-day,
But, curious, they ask'd him a moment to stay.
"For," said Molly the cook-maid, "we all long to see,
If you've a blue vein 'twixt the navel and knee."

Ned pull'd up his clothes, sir, when, to their surprise
They beheld his blue vein of a wonderful size.
The sight, Kate the carrotty, couldn't withstand;
She grasped the blue vein till it burst in her hand.

So alarm'd the prude Peggy fell into strong fits,
Frightened cook and Doll Dairy went out of their wits.
Then carrotty Kitty to gipsy Ned spoke:
"We'll each give a guinea to stifle the joke."

But Ned swore that no money should silence his tongue,
That the tale should be told in a mirth-moving song:
"As a caution," cry'd Ned, "to all Abigails frail
That there's more fun in fucking that jalaping ale."

The story like wildfire o'er Cambria spread,
From the borders of Chester to fam'd Holyhead.
In a vein of good humor, the vein that is blue,
Will long be remembered by me and by you;

Then fill a bright bumper to honour this vein,
A bumper of pleasure to badger all pain;
So hear us, celestials, gay mortals below!
Drink cunt, the blue vein, wherein floods of joy flow.