The Venture/The Market Girl

by Thomas Hardy

THE MARKET GIRL.

(Country Song.)

I.

Nobody took any notice of her as she stood on the causey-kerb,

A-trying to sell her honey and apples, and bunches of garden herb;
And if she had offered to give her wares, and herself with them too, that day,
I doubt if a soul would have cared to take a bargain so choice away.

II.

But chancing to trace her sunburnt grace that morning as I passed nigh,

I went and I said, "Poor maidy, dear! And will none o' the people buy?"
And so it began; and soon we knew what the end of it all must be,
And I found that though no others had bid, a prize had been won by me.

THOMAS HARDY.