Bachelor & Co.: “Give me a book … Heigh-ho!”


Drawing and song by Kenneth Phillips Britton. Original [ca. 192-] in
James Brownlee Rankin Autograph Collection, (Princeton University Library collection number C0120, box 1, folder 1.)


Source for drawing at left:
James Baillie, Single. Hand-colored lithograph. New York, 1848. (Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society)
Give me a book instead of a wife
And I shall ask no more of life.
A book all grief and pain assuages
Through the silent thoughts upon its pages.
A book has not a painted face
And can be kept right in its place.
CHORUS
Heigh-ho! The bachelor life!
A book shuts up in time of strife,
But you can’t say the same of any man’s wife.
Heigh-ho!
——
Give me a book instead of a wife
And I shall ask no more of life.
A book gives joy and bright romance,
But never wants to go out and dance.
A book at night likes it covers, too,
But it never pulls them off of you!
[CHORUS]
Heigh-ho! The bachelor life!
You can cut a book with a carving knife,
But you can’t say the same of any man’s wife.
Heigh-ho!

Kenneth Phillips Britton.