/ · John S. Farmer’s Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
The High Pad’s Boast
The High Pad’s Boast
b. 1625
Attributed to JOHN FLETCHER—a song from a collection of black-letter broadside ballads. Also in New Canting Dict. 1725..
I
I keep my Horse; I keep my whore;
I take no rents; yet am not poor;
I travel all the land about,
And yet was born to ne’er a foot.
II
With partridge plump, and woodcock fine,
At midnight, I do often dine:
And if my whore be not in Case,
1 in the house
My hostess’ daughter has her place.
III
The maids sit up, and watch their turns;
If I stay long, the tapster mourns;
Nor has the cookmaid mind to sin,
Tho’ tempted by the chamberlain.
IV
But when I knock, O how they bustle;
The hostler yawns, the geldings justle:
If the maid be sleepy, O how they curse her;
And all this comes, of,
Deliver your purse, sir.
Notes
See Note to “The Maunder’s, Initiation”, ante.
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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