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Acknowledgments
Notes The rhyme of "posies" with "roses" suggests the exchange between Marlowe's "Passionate Shepherd" and Ralegh's "Nymph's Reply". Blue-eyed Mary, though, is more materialistic than the Nymph; she's not satisfied with flowers or sentiment but instead is only cheered by the offer of a house and home. A nineteenth century broadside tells of another Blue-ey'd Mary whose fate was not so pleasant. Perhaps Susan's Mary is based on the first fourteen lines of the following story:(The Common Muse, An Anthology of Popular British Ballad Poetry, XVth-XXth Century, edited by Vivian De Sola Pinto and Allan Edwin Rodway, Chatto & Windus, London 1957; from Nottingham University Library Collection of Original Broadsides (mainly nineteenth century): loose broadsides unnumbered in File r/PR 118/B2.)
Blue-ey'd Mary* Hoil = E. Hoyle's book on whist, 1st edition, 1742
In a cottage embosom'd within a deep shade
Like a rose in the desert oh view the sweet maid.
Her aspect all sweetness all plaintive her eye
And a bosom for which e'en a monarch might sigh
Then in a neat Sunday gown see her met by the squire
All attraction her countenance his all desire.
He accosts her she blunders he flatters she smiles
And soon blue-ey'd Mary's seduced by his wiles
Now drops of contrition her pillow wet o'er
But the sheet when once stain'd knows whiteness no more
The aged folks whisper the maidens look shy
To town the squire presses how can she deny.
There behold her in lodging she dresses in style
Public places frequents sighs no more but reads Hoil.*
Learns to squander they quarrel his love turns to hate.
And soon blue-ey'd Mary is left to her fate
Still of beauty possess'd and not void of shame
With a heart that recoils at the prostitute name
She tries for a service her character is gone
And for skill at her needle at last is unknown,
Pale want now approaches the pawnbroker near
And her trinkets and clothes one by one disappear
Till at length sorely pinn'd and quite desperate grown
The poor blue-ey'd Mary is forc'd on the town
In a brothel next see her trick'd to allure
And all ages all humours compell'd to endure
Compell'd tho disgusted to wheedle and feign,
With an aspect all smiles and a bosom all pain
Now caress'd now insulted now flatter'd now scorn'd
And by ruffians and drunkards oft wantonly spurn'd
The worst of all misery she's doomed to endure
For the blue-ey'd Mary is now an impure
While thus the sharp arrow sinks deep in my soul
She flies for relief to that traitor the bowl,
Grows stupid and bloated and lost to all shame
Whilst a dreadful disease is pervading her frame,
Now with eyes dim and languid the once blooming maid
In a garret on straw faint and helpless is laid
Oh! mark her pale cheeks see her scarce take her breath
And lo! her blue eyes are now sealed in death.
References