JOHN O’ BADENYON.
This excellent song is the composition of my worthy friend, old Skinner, at Linshart.
“When first I cam to be a man
Of twenty years or so,
I thought myself a handsome youth,
And fain the world would know;
In best attire I stept abroad,
With spirits brisk and gay,
And here and there and everywhere,
Was like a morn in May;
No care had I nor fear of want,
But rambled up and down,
And for a beau I might have pass’d
In country or in town;
I still was pleas’d where’er I went,
And when I was alone,
I tun’d my pipe and pleas’d myself
Wi’ John o’ Badenyon.
Now in the days of youthful prime
A mistress I must find,
For love, I heard, gave one an air
And ev’n improved the mind:
On Phillis fair above the rest
Kind fortune fixt my eyes,
Her piercing beauty struck my heart,
And she became my choice;
To Cupid now with hearty prayer
I offer’d many a vow;
And danc’d, and sung, and sigh’d, and swore,
As other lovers do;
But, when at last I breath’d my flame,
I found her cold as stone;
I left the jilt, and tun’d my pipe
To John o’ Badenyon.
When love had thus my heart beguil’d
With foolish hopes and vain,
To friendship’s port I steer’d my course,
And laugh’d at lover’s pain
A friend I got by lucky chance
’Twas something like divine,
An honest friend’s a precious gift,
And such a gift was mine:
And now, whatever might betide,
A happy man was I,
In any strait I knew to whom
I freely might apply;
A strait soon came: my friend I try’d;
He heard, and spurn’d my moan;
I hy’d me home, and tun’d my pipe
To John o’ Badenyon.
Methought I should be wiser next,
And would a patriot turn,
Began to doat on Johnny Wilks,
And cry up Parson Horne.
Their manly spirit I admir’d,
And prais’d their noble zeal,
Who had with flaming tongue and pen
Maintain’d the public weal;
But e’er a month or two had past,
I found myself betray’d,
’Twas self and party after all,
For a’ the stir they made;
At last I saw the factious knaves
Insult the very throne,
I curs’d them a’, and tun’d my pipe
To John o’ Badenyon.”