The Thieves’ Chaunt [Notes]
(By W. H. SMITH in The Individual)
I
There is a nook in the boozing ken, [1]
Where many a mug I fog, [2]
And the smoke curls gently, while cousin Ben
Keeps filling the pots again and again,
If the coves have stump’d their hog. [3]
II
The liquors around are diamond bright,
And the diddle is best of all; [4]
But I never in liquors took delight,
For liquors I think is all a bite, [5]
So for heavy wet I call. [6]
III
The heavy wet in a pewter quart,
As brown as a badger’s hue,
More than Bristol milk or gin, [7]
Brandy or rum, I tipple in,
With my darling blowen, Sue. [8]
IV
Oh! grunting peck in its eating [9]
Is a richly soft and savoury thing;
A Norfolk capon is jolly grub [10]
When you wash it down with strength of bub: [11]
But dearer to me Sue’s kisses far,
Than grunting peck or other grub are,
And I never funks the lambskin men, [12]
When I sits with her in the boozing ken.
V
Her duds are bob—she’s a kinchin crack, [13]
And I hopes as how she’ll never back;
For she never lushes dog’s-soup or lap, [14]
But she loves my cousin the bluffer’s tap. [15]
She’s wide-awake, and her prating cheat, [16 ]
For humming a cove was never beat; [17]
But because she lately nimm’d some tin, [18]
They have sent her to lodge at the King’s Head Inn. [19]
[1: public house] [2: pipe; smoke] [3: paid a shilling ] [4: gin] [5: humbug] [6: porter] [7: sherry] [8: mistress] [9: pork] [10: red-herring] [11: lots of beer] [12: judges] [13: clothes; neat; fine young woman] [14: drinks water or tea] [15: inn-keeper] [16: tongue] [17: fooling a man] [18: stole; money] [19: Newgate; Notes]