The Canter’s Serenade

The Canter’s Serenade
1725
from The New Canting Dictionary:—“Sung early in the morning, at the barn doors where their doxies have reposed during the night”.

I

Ye morts and ye dells 1 women; girls
Come out of your cells,
And charm all the palliards about ye; 2 beggars [Notes]
Here birds of all feathers,
Through deep roads and all weathers,
Are gathered together to toute ye.

II

With faces of wallnut,
And bladder and smallgut,
We’re come scraping and singing to rouse ye;
Rise, shake off your straw,
And prepare you each maw 3 mouth
To kiss, eat, and drink till you’re bouzy. 4 drunk,





Notes

The New Canting Dictionary (1725) is, in the main, a reprint of The Dictionary of the Canting Crew (c. 1696) compiled by B. E. The chief difference is that the former contains a collection of Canting Songs, most of which are included in the present collection.

Stanza I, line 3. palliards—see Note, p. 210, ten lines from bottom.

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 Maunder’s Initiation
The High Pad’s Boast
The Merry Beggars
A Mort’s Drinking Song
A Beggar I’ll Be
A Budg And Snudg Song
The Maunder’s Praise Of His Strowling Mort
The Rum-Mort’s Praise Of Her Faithless Maunder
The Black Procession
Frisky Moll’s Song
The Canter’s Serenade
Retoure My Dear Dell
The Vain Dreamer
When My Dimber Dell I Courted
The Oath Of The Canting Crew
Come All You Buffers Gay
The Potato Man
A Slang Pastoral
Ye Scamps, Ye Pads, Ye Divers
The Sandman’s Wedding
The Happy Pair
. . .
Appendix