Flashey Joe

Flashey Joe
1826
By R. MORLEY in Universal Songster, ii. 194.

I

As Flashey Joe one day did pass
  Through London streets, so jolly,
A crying fish, he spied a lass
  ’Twas Tothill’s pride, sweet Molly!
He wip’d his mug with bird’s-eye blue 1 mouth; silk handkerchief
  He cried,—“Come, buss your own dear Joe”; 2 kiss
She turned aside, alas! ’tis true
  And bawled out—“Here’s live mackerel, O!
    Four a shilling, mackerel, O!
    All alive, O!
    New mackerel, O.”

II

Says I,—“Miss Moll, don’t tip this gam, 3 talk like that
  You knows as how it will not do;
For you I milled flash Dustman Sam 4 fought
  Who made your peepers black and blue. 5 eyes
Vhy, then you swore you would be kind
  But you have queer’d so much of late, 6 acted strangely
And always changing like the wind,
  So now I’ll brush and sell my skate.” 7 be off
    Buy my skate, etc.

III

She blubb’d—“Now, Joe, vhy treat me ill?
  You know I love you as my life!
When I forsook both Sam and Will,
  And promised to become your wife,
You molled it up with Brick-dust Sall 8 took as a mistress
  And went to live with her in quod! 9 gaol
So I’ll pike off with my mack’ral 10 walk
  And you may bolt with your salt cod.”
    Here’s mack’rel, etc.

IV

I could not part with her, d’ye see
  So I tells Moll to stop her snivel; 11 crying
“Your panting bubs and glist’ning eye 12 paps
  Just make me love you like the divil.”
“Vhy, then,” says she, “come tip’s your dad, 13 shake hands
  And let us take a drap of gin,
And may I choke with hard-roed shad
  If I forsake my Joe Herring.”
    Four a shilling, etc.





Taken from Musa Pedestris, Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536―1896], collected and annotated by John S. Farmer.

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Nearby

Overview
Forewords
. . .
The Masqueraders
The Flash Man of St. Giles
A Leary Mot
The Night Before Larry was Stretched
The Song of the Young Prig
The Milling Match
Ya-Hip, My Hearties!
Sonnets For The Fancy: After The Manner Of Petrarch
The True Bottom’d Boxer
Bobby And His Mary
Flashey Joe
My Mugging Maid
Poor Luddy
The Pickpocket’s Chaunt
On the Prigging Lay
The Lag’s Lament
Nix My Doll, Pals, Fake Away
The Game Of High Toby
The Double Cross
The Thieves’ Chaunt
The House Breaker’s Song
. . .
Appendix