A.E. Housman (1859–1936)

The night my father got me

        His mind was not on me;

He did not plague his fancy

        To muse if I should be

        The son you see.

The day my mother bore me

        She was a fool and glad,

For all the pain I cost her,

        That she had borne the lad

        That borne she had.

My mother and my father

        Out of the light they lie;

The warrant would not find them,

        And here ’tis only I

        Shall hang so high.

Oh let not man remember

        The soul that God forgot,

But fetch the county kerchief

        And noose me in the knot,

        And I will rot.

For so the game is ended

        That should not have begun.

My father and my mother

        They had a likely son,

        And I have none.