The Weaver and The Factory Maid - Steeleye Span

When I was a tailor I carried my bodkin and shears

When I was a weaver I carried my roods and my gear

My temples also, my small clothes and reed in my hand

And wherever I go, here’s the jolly bold weaver again

I’m a hand weaver to my trade

I fell in love with a factory maid

And if I could but her favour win

I’d stand beside her and weave by steam

My father to me scornful said

How could you fancy a factory maid

When you could have girls fine and gay

Dressed like unto the Queen of May

As for your fine girls I don’t care

If I could but enjoy my dear

I’d stand in the factory all the day

And she and I’d keep our shuttles in play

I went to my love’s bedroom door

Where often times I had been before

But I could not speak nor yet get in

The pleasant bed that my love laid in

How can you say it’s a pleasant bed

Where nowt lies there but a factory maid?

A factory lass although she be

Blest in the man that enjoys she

O pleasant thoughts come to my mind

As I turn doen the sheets so fine

And I seen her two breasts standing so

Like two white hills all covered with snow

The loom goes click and the loom goes clack

The shuttle flies forward and then flies back

The weaver’s so bent that he’s like to crack

Such a wearisome trade is the weaver’s

The yarn is made into cloth at last

The ends of west they are made quite fast

The weaver’s labour are now all past

Such a wearisome trade is the weaver’s

Where are the girls I will tell you plain

The girls have gone to weave by steam

And if you’d find them you must rise at dawn

And trudge to the mill in the early morn

When I was a tailor I carried my bodkin and shears

When I was a weaver I carried my roods and my gear

My temples also, my small clothes and reed in my hand

And wherever I go, here’s the jolly bold weaver again