The Wife's Dream, Northampton, England, c1850...
"I Try to Greet Him with a Smile When Oft My Poor Heart Bleeds" [Broadside]. [Temperance]. [Great Britain]. The Wife's Dream. Northampton, England: Henson, Prinier [sic], [c.1850]. 10" x 7-1/2" broadside mounted on 10-1/2" x 8" sheet, verse text, in two columns below headline, first column headed with a woodcut figure of a woman, second column ends with a woodcut ornament, columns separated by rules. Light browning, heavier browning and light foxing to edges. $500. * A verse ballad written in the voice of a wife, who explains why she remains married to an alcoholic husband. She stays out of love and the hope that he will abandon drink, feelings that were reinforced after she had a sad dream in which her husband was dead. "And though it cost me many a pang, to know the life he leads,/ I try to greet him with a smile when oft my poor heart bleeds,/ I'll humbly put my trust in God and, pray for strength to bear,/ The trials that he has sent on earth, for all of us to share,/ And if by patience I can change my husband's wandering life,/ I'll bless the hour that dreams was sent to his neglected wife." OCLC locates 1 copy at UCLA, Library Hub locates 1 at the National Library of Scotland. We located another copy at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Roud Folk Song Index 10918.
Price: $500.00
Book number 73668