Sweetness and softness were old friends seldom heard from.

To every lover it was a surprise,

That when I cried as a child no one would come,

And that I never understood why.

“Your tears are your folly”, my father would say,

wiping my tears with his calloused hands.

He said I would have to toughen up some day,

“Grow up and be a man.”

And grow up did, I became a man,

a great one I cannot say,

For like my father, I have rough hands,

And i don't know my own way.

So my love, don't be bitter or mad,

When i reveal a heart that's rough and coarse,

For I am a man who's neither good nor bad,

And for my roughness, I feel no remorse.