La fille de Londres [English translation]

Into my room there came a rat.

He gnawed the mousetrap, stopped the clock,

Tipped up the brown ale in my crock.

Into my milk-white arms I took him,

He was so warm, just like a child.

I held him tenderly to rock him,

Sang this lullaby as I smiled:

Chorus

Sleep my rat, my cop, my bobby, sleep my boy in blue.

Don’t you hiss along the sleeping quays, it’s not for you,

When I hold my darling’s hand, as I hope to do.

A Chinese came in from the dark

And gave old London Town a look.

On his head, a sailor’s bonnet

With a coral anchor on it.

At Charlie’s place at Pennyfields

In silent night at him I smiled,

And whispered, he was quite beguiled:-

Chorus

I’d like, don’t quite know what I’d like.

To hear my voice, I wouldn’t like.

Afraid, afraid of you, afraid of me.

His blue wool costume when he swims

Had big round letters showing me

The name of some old Company

That goes all round the world, it seems.

We went inside at Charlie’s place

At Pennyfields without a care.

I danced away the livelong night

With my bedazzled China there.

Chorus

At Charlie’s, it was bright and sunny.

Tess played ‘Daisy Bell’ on her piano,

An old one, brown-toothed like a camel.

I took the Chinese to my room.

He shooed the rat, fixed up the clock,

He poured brown ale, refilled the crock.

Into my trembling arms I took him,

Like a child, so as to rock him.

He lay down on his back and slept.

His knife into my hand I slipped.

Chorus

It was a slippery, icy knife,

Dirty and red from moments of truth,

Dirty and red and none too choosy.

• Artist:Catherine Sauvage