Pretty Polly Perkins Of Paddington Green
Often described as the most charming of all cockney
ballads, it was written and sung by Harry Clifton.
I am a broken-hearted milkman, in grief I'm arrayed,
Through keeping of the company of a young servant maid,
Who lived on board and wages the house to keep clean
In a gentleman's family near Paddington Green.
CHORUS:
She was as beautiful as a butterfly
And as proud as a Queen
Was pretty little Polly Perkins of
Paddington Green.
She'd an ankle like an atelope and a step like a deer,
A voice like a blackbird, so mellow and clear,
Her hair hung in ringlets so beautiful and long,
I thought that she loved me but I found I was wrong.
When I asked her to marry me she said 'Oh! what stuff',
And told me to 'drop it, for she had quite enough
Of my nonsense' - at the same time I'd been very kind,
But to marry a milkman she didn't feel inclined.
The words that she uttered went straight through my heart,
I sobbed and I sighed, and straight did depart;
With a tear on my eye lid as big as a bean,
Bidding farewell to Polly and Paddington Green.
In six months she married - this hard-hearted girl,
But it was not a Wi-Lord, and it was not a Nearl,
It was not a 'Baronite', but a shade or two wuss,
It was a bow-legged conductor of a twopenny bus.