Classic Poem

Trip it, gipsies, trip it fine,
Show tricks and lofty capers;
At threading-needles we repine,
And leaping over rapiers.
Pindy-pandy rascal toys,
We scorn cutting purses;
Though we live by making noise,
For cheating none can curse us.

Over high ways, over low,
And over stones and gravel,
Though we trip it on the toe,
And thus for silver travel;
Though our dances waste our backs,
At night fat capons mend them;
Eggs well brewed in buttered sack,
Our wenches say befriend them.

Oh that all the world were mad,
Then should we have fine dancing;
Hobby-horses would be had,
And brave girls keep a-prancing;
Beggars would on cock-horse ride,
And boobies fall a-roaring;
And cuckolds, though no horns be spied,
Be one another goring.

Welcome, poet to our ging!
Make rhymes, we'll give thee reason,
Canary bees thy brains shall sting,
Mull-sack did ne'er speak treason.
Peter-see-me shall wash thy nowl,
And Malaga glasses fox thee;
If, poet, thou toss not bowl for bowl,
Thou shalt not kiss a doxy.