/ · John S. Farmer’s Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
When My Dimber Dell I Courted
When My Dimber Dell I Courted
1725
From The New Canting Dictionary.
I
When my dimber dell I courted
1 pretty wench
She had youth and beauty too,
Wanton joys my heart transported,
And her wap was ever new.
2 Notes
But conquering time doth now deceive her,
Which her pleasures did uphold;
All her wapping now must leave her,
For, alas! my dell’s grown old.
II
Her wanton motions which invited,
Now, alas! no longer charm,
Her glaziers too are quite benighted,
3 eyes
Nor can any prig-star charm.
For conquering time, alas! deceives her
Which her triumphs did uphold,
And every moving beauty leaves her
Alas! my dimber dell’s grown old.
III
There was a time no cull could toute her,
4 man; look at
But was sure to be undone:
Nor could th’ uprightman live without her,
5 Notes
She triumph’d over every one.
But conquering time does now deceive her,
Which her sporting us’d t’ uphold,
All her am’rous dambers leave her,
For, alas! the dell’s grown old.
IV
All thy comfort, dimber dell,
Is, now, since thou hast lost thy prime,
That every cull can witness well,
Thou hast not misus’d thy time.
There’s not a prig or palliard living,
Who has not been thy slave inroll’d.
Then cheer thy mind, and cease thy grieving;
Thou’st had thy time, tho’ now grown old.
Notes
See Note to “The Canter’s Serenade.” The first two stanzas
appear in a somewhat different form as “a new song” to the time of
Beauty’s Ruin in The Triumph of Wit (1707), of which the
first stanza is as follows:—
When Dorinda first I courted,
She had charms and beauty too;
Conquering pleasures when she sported,
The transport it was ever new:
But wastful time do’s now deceive her,
Which her glories did uphold;
All her arts can ne’er relieve her,
Poor Dorinda is grown old.
Stanza I, line 4.
Wap = the act of kind.
Dimber dell =
pretty wench—“A dell is a yonge wenche, able for generation, and not
yet knowen or broken by the upright man ... when they have beene lyen
with all by the upright man then they be Doxes, and no Dells.”—
(HARMAN).
Stanza III, line 3. Upright-men—“the second rank of the
Canting tribes, having sole right to the first night’s lodging with
the Dells.”—(B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, 1696).
Taken from
Musa Pedestris,
Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
[1536―1896], collected and annotated by John S. Farmer.
previous *
nextNearby