Oh, My Goodie Gracious
Oh, My Goodie Gracious
Original Text
John White's Collection of the Songs of Johnny Burke, ed. William J.
Kirwin (St. John's, Newfoundland: Harry Cuff, 1982): 138.
1Oh, herself Anastatia felt mopish and queer,
2 She hadn’t been well, I should say, for a year,
3The bright healthy color is gone from her cheek,
4 And it’s only just once in a year that she’ll speak.
5The dark heavy vapor now hangs o’er her eye,
6 She’ll fret and she’ll sob, and she’ll heave a deep sigh;
7Her features are thin and her face is so small,
8 Thru the dents in her cheeks you can see a drop ball.
9 Oh, my goodie gracious, have pity on me;
10 Oh, is there no cure for this neuralgia,
11 Oh me! Oh my! Oh mercy, my law,
12 I’m afraid I’ll go wild with this pain in me jaw.
13Her face, once so plump is now sallow and pale,
14 Her jaws are as thin as a bumble bee’s tail,
15Her health is broke down and so wretched she feel
17It’s only some dainty she has in her sight,
18 A plate of cold cabbage or something that’s light,
19A can of corn-beef or a dish of boiled rice,
20 Or a dumplin so soggy it would kill a man twice.
21From worry and care and for want of rest,
22 You can stow forty butter-tubs under my vest,
23And my voice is as weak as that two year old pup,
24 That you’d think ’twas a valentine box they’d dug up.
25My jaws are so thin and my form is so spare,
26 You could back me to trot against Druken’s old mare,
27If the wind freshened up and I stood by the door,
28 I’d be out in New Jersey before half-past four.
29Now young men take a warning from me, I’ll be bound,
30 Don’t marry a girl if her grinders ain’t sound.
31If her tomb-stones are bad she’ll soon let you know that
32 When she’ll start in G Sharp and drop down to B Flat.
33Both night and day time she’ll worry your life,
34 I pity the man with a cross, peevish wife,
35So I think the best way to open the ball,
36 Let them stay with their Ma’s and don’t mind them at all.
Notes
16] crue-beans: "Pig's trotter; esp the hock prepared for food by pickling" (Dictionary of Newfoundland English). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire / Sharine Leung
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
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