An old chap I used to work with always used to recite this one:
My Mother said, I never should
Play with the gipsies in the wood;
If I did, she would say,
You naughty girl to disobey.
Your hair shan’t curl and your shoes shan’t shine,
You gipsy girl, you shan’t be mine.
And my father said that if I did
He’d rap my head with the teapot-lid.
The wood was dark, the grass was green
Along came Sally with a tambourine.
I went to sea – no ship to get across,
I paid ten shillings for a blind white horse.
I up on his back
And was off on a crack,
Sally tell my mother that I shan’t come back.