You needn't pray for me, old lady, I don't want no one's prayer, <br />I'm fit and jolly as ever I was--you needn't think I care. <br />When I go whistling down the road, when the warm night is falling, <br />She needn't think I'm whistling her, it's another girl I'm calling. <br /> <br />If I pass her house a dozen times, or fifty times a day, <br />She needn't think I think of her, my work lies out that way. <br />If they should tell her I've grown thin (for that is what they've told me) <br />This cursed weather counts for that, and not the girl who sold me. <br /> <br />And if they say I'm off my feed I still can tip a can; <br />If I get drunk what's that to her? I am not her young man. <br />I know I've had a lucky let-off--she ain't no class, she ain't, <br />For all she looked like a bush o' roses and talked like a story book saint. <br /> <br />I never give a thought to her. Don't worry your old head, <br />I've quite forgot her pretty ways and the cruel things she said, <br />There's lots of other gals to be had as any chap can see, <br />So you cheer up, you've got no call to go and pray for me. <br />But all the same, if you want to pray, you'd best pray God take care of them, <br />For if I catch them two together, by hell! I'll swing for the pair of them.<br /><br />Edith Nesbit<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-jilted-lover-to-his-mother/
