Market Women’s Cries

APPLES

         Come buy my fine wares,

         Plums, apples and pears.

         A hundred a penny,

         In conscience too many:

         Come, will you have any?

         My children are seven,

         I wish them in Heaven;

         My husband’s a sot,

         With his pipe and his pot,

         Not a farthen will gain them,

         And I must maintain them.

                           ONIONS

         Come, follow me by the smell,

         Here are delicate onions to sell;

         I promise to use you well.

         They make the blood warmer,

         You’ll feed like a farmer;

For this is every cook’s opinion,

No savoury dish without an onion;

But, lest your kissing should be spoiled,

Your onions must be thoroughly boiled:

         Or else you may spare

         Your mistress a share,

The secret will never be known:

         She cannot discover

         The breath of her lover,

But think it as sweet as her own.

                           HERRINGS

         Be not sparing,

         Leave off swearing.

         Buy my herring

         Fresh from Malahide,

         Better never was tried.

Come, eat them with pure fresh butter and mustard,

Their bellies are soft, and as white as a custard.

Come, sixpence a dozen, to get me some bread,

Or, like my own herrings, I soon shall be dead.