Can you make me a cambric shirt?- (PA) 1846 Bliss
[Following "Can you make me a cambric shirt" in Ritson's Gammer Gurton's Garland in 1793, 1810 and later editions (London), the same version was reprinted in J. O. Halliwell's 1842 book, The Nursery Rhymes of England. This version is apparently the first American printing of Ritson's Can you make me a cambric shirt? which came in the 1846, "The Book of Nursery Rhymes Complete: From the Creation of the World to the present time," published in Philadelphia by Theodore Bliss & Co.
Halliwell's epic book, The Nursery Rhymes of England was republished in New York in 1886, and perhaps earlier. So the ballad appeared in both Philadelphia and New York long before 1900. The nursery song books effect on the distribution of this ballad is unknown and also not considered- as Kittredge and other ballad scholars tend to overlook the nursery song publications.
The text below is from Ritson then Halliwell but it is exactly the same in Bliss, 1846. The title usually appears without a question mark: Can you make me a cambric shirt
R. Matteson 2014]
FOURTEENTH CLASS.
LOVE AND MATRIMONY.
CCCCLXXV.
Can you make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Without any seam or needlework?
And you shall be a true lover of mine.
Can you wash it in yonder well,
Parsley, &c.
Where never sprung water, nor rain ever fell?
And you, &c.
Can you dry it on yonder thorn,
Parsley, &c.
Which never bore blossom since Adam was born?
And you, &c.
Now you have ask'd me questions three,
Parsley, &c.
I hope you'll answer as many for me,
And you, &c.
Can you find me an acre of land,
Parsley, &c.
Between the salt water and the sea sand?
And you, &c.
Can you plough it with a ram's horn,
Parsley, &c.
And sow it all over with one pepper-corn?
And you, &c.
Can you reap it with a sickle of leather,
Parsley, &c.
And bind it up with a peacock's feather?
And you, &c.
When you have done and finish'd your work,
Parsley, &c.
Then come to me for your cambric shirt,
And you, &c.