1.
Trip it, Gypsies, 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. :‖
2.
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 ’em;
‖: Eggs (well brewed in buttered sack),
Our wenches say, befriend ’em. :‖
3.
O 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. :‖
4.
Welcome, poet, to our ging!
Make rhymes; we’ll give thee reason.
Canary bees thy brains shall sting;
Mulled sack did ne’er speak treason.
Peter-see-me shall wash thy noll
And malaga glasses fox ’ee.
‖: If, poet, thou toss not bowl for bowl,
Thou shalt not kiss a doxy. :‖