"Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green" is the title of an English song, composed by the London music hall and broadside songwriter Harry Clifton (1832–1872),[1] and first published in 1864.
The song gained a place in the canonical Oxford Book of Comic Verse, and the original manuscript of "Polly" is now held in the Bodleian Library.
The tune, with new lyrics, found its way into the Australian bush culture, among outback farmers and sheep shearers, in the song "One of the Has-beens".
The song is also sung by Roy Hudd in true music hall fashion on BBC TV's The Good Old Days, with the audience at the City Varieties Theatre, Leeds.
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 She was as beautiful as a butterfly and proud as a Queen Was pretty little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green She'd an ankle like an antelope 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 [Alternative and possibly original/earlier lyrics to second verse] Her eyes were as black as the pips of a pear No rose in the garden with her cheeks could compare Her hair hung in ringlets so beautiful and long I thought that she loved me but I found I was wrong Refrain When I'd rattle in the morning and cry "Milk below" At the sound of my milk cans her face she did show With a smile upon her countenance and a laugh in her eye If I'd thought that she loved me I'd have laid down to die Refrain When I asked her to marry me, she said "Oh what stuff" And told me to stop it for she'd 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 Refrain "The man that has me must have silver and gold A chariot to ride in and be handsome and bold His hair must be curly as any watch-spring, And his whiskers as big as a brush for clothing" Refrain The words that she uttered went straight through my heart I sobbed and I sighed, and I straight did depart With a tear on my eyelid as big as a bean I bid farewell to Polly and to Paddington Green Refrain In six months she married, this hard-hearted girl But it was not a viscount, and it was not an earl It was not a baronite, but a shade or two worse It was a bow-legged conductor of a tuppenny bus Refrain