The Culprit

by A. E. Housman

    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.