She kept him out in the garden shed
Where her sisters wouldn’t see,
He’d not been once in her upstairs bed
If they saw, she’d say, ‘Who me?’
He hadn’t come from her neighbourhood
So he wasn’t quite her class,
Whenever they met, he’d be upset
Like walking on broken glass.

He wasn’t known to her wealthy friends
Her folks or her peers at all,
If they came by she would go all shy
And gaze at a cold brick wall,
While he made out that he wasn’t there
Would hum and look at the sky,
She made him stare like he didn’t care
Or was merely passing by.

But deep down things were beginning to hurt
As he felt each little slight,
Like when she came to the garden shed
For her love feast every night,
She’d bring her cushions and lay her down
As she offered up her breast,
Then pick the cushions up off the ground
To take, once she had dressed.

She didn’t want to be seen with him
She’d say, ‘It can’t be done,
My friends would freak and would think me weak
If they knew what’s going on,’
She said he’d have to be patient, that
It all would be all right,
‘The time will come when I’ll have to tell
But it just won’t be tonight.’

Her sister came to her room one day
With a new bow in her hair,
Her hands had shook with excitement
And that made her sister stare,
‘You’ll not believe what I found today
And I took into my bed,
The greatest love of my life, and he
Was sat in the garden shed.’

David Lewis Paget