/ · John S. Farmer’s Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
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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