Jenny, 'gin you can love

Jenny, 'gin you can love
  and have resolv'd you will try me,
silly Scruples remove
  and do no longer deny me;
By thy bonny Black Eye,
  I swear nean other can move me;
Then if still you deny,
  You never, never did love me.

Jockey, how can you mistake,
  that know full well when you woo me;
My poor Heart does so ake,
  it throbs as it would come through me!
How can you be my Friend,
  that thus are bent to my Ruine?
All the Love you pretend,
  is only for my Undoing.

Who can tell by what Art
  This Chiming Nothing, called Honour,
Charms my Jenny's soft Heart,
  When Love and Jockey has won her?
'Tis a Toy in the Head,
  And Muckle Woe there's about it;
Yet I'd rather be dead,
  Than live in Scandal without it.

But if you'l love me, and Wed;
  And guard my Honour from Harms too;
Jockey I'le take to my Bed,
  And fold him close in my Arms too.
Talk not of Wedding, dear Sweet,
  For I must have Chains that are softer;
I'm of a Northerly Breed,
  And never shall love thee well after.

Then since ill Fortune intends,
  Our Amity shall be no dearer;
Still let us kiss and be friends,
  And sigh we shall never come nearer.

Submitted by Virginia Knight

Authorship

• by Thomas d'Urfey (1653 - 1723) [ author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

• by Henry Purcell (1658/9 - 1695), "Jenny, 'gin you can love", Z. 571 no. 7 (1688) [duet], from the stage composition Incidental Music to A Fool's Preferment -or- The Three Dukes of Dunstable, no. 7. [
   text verified 1 time
  ]

Text added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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