/ · John S. Farmer’s Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
Ya-Hip, My Hearties!
Ya-Hip, My Hearties!
1819
From MOORE’S Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress:—“Sung by Jack Holmes, the Coachman, at a late Masquerade in St Giles’s, in the
character of Lord C—st—e—on ... This song which was written for him
by Mr. Gregson, etc.”.
I
I first was hired to
peg a Hack 1 drive a hackney-coach
They call “The Erin” sometime back,
Where soon I learned to
patter flash,
2 talk slang
To curb the tits, and tip the lash—
3 horses; whip
Which pleased
the Master of The Crown
So much, he had me up to town,
And gave me
lots of
quids a year,
4 money
To
tool “The Constitutions” here.
5 drive
So, ya-hip, hearties, here am I
That drive the Constitution Fly.
II
Some wonder how the Fly holds out,
So rotten ’tis, within, without;
So loaded too, through thick and thin,
And with such
heavy creturs IN.
But, Lord, ’t will last our time—or if
The wheels should, now and then, get stiff,
Oil of Palm’s the thing that, flowing,
6 money
Sets the naves and felloes going.
So ya-hip,
Hearties! etc.
III
Some wonder, too, the
tits that pull
This
rum concern along, so full,
Should never
back or
bolt, or kick
The load and driver to Old Nick.
But, never fear, the breed, though British,
Is now no longer
game or skittish;
Except sometimes about their corn,
Tamer
Houghnhums ne’er were born.
So ya-hip,
Hearties, etc.
IV
And then so sociably we ride!—
While some have places, snug, inside,
Some hoping to be there anon.
Through many a dirty road
hang on.
And when we reach a filthy spot
(Plenty of which there are, God wot),
You’d laugh to see with what an air
We
take the spatter—each his share.
So ya-hip,
Hearties! etc.
Notes
Stanza III, line 8. Houyhnhnms. A race of horses endowed with
human reason, and bearing rule over the race of man—a reference to
Dean Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726).
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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