Old Dame Peach stuck like a leech to any good bargin what fell in her reach,
She never let slip what come in her grip: however they turned she was ready for each;
She'd strip herself bare or sell you her hair, or put up a price for her best china ware,
Her very own bed in which she was wed would be yours in a second, if only you dare;
Of childer she'd lots and would lend you their cots, and although you'd have backed her to lose in a race,
Yet at business she shone when the others wor done; and nobody ever could stand in her place.
Among all the men she took care of her-sen and was never alarmed at the roughest of tricks,
She'd sit in a bar suppin' ale from a jar, till a bargain was driven, her profit to fix.
Folk knew her all round and none ever was found but at one time or other had met her somehow,
A good stand-up fight it was all her delight: she would get up at midnight to sell you a cow;
She bested the men what came out of the Fen, and the folk from the Wold they found theirsens sold,
While them from the Heath they was allers beneath; for however they tried they was out in the cold.
The top of the tree was our Mrs. P. at swapping a horse or a cargo of tea,
She'd purchase old wicks or a truckload of bricks or a house full of furniture, just for a spree,
Though she's mounted on high somewhere up in the sky, wherever she is there is business ahead,
But I wish she was back when we'd have a real crack on the friends that are gone and the days that are fled;
When her shop was a store and a thousand things more; with her busy in-gathering all she could reach:
A jewel, a treasure, a caution, a pleasure: Oh! sadly we miss her, our Old Mrs. Peach.