THE POLE

I'm an old man, I'm eighty-three,

I seldom get away;

My work, it keeps me close at home —

I have no time for play.

If it were not for the journey back,

That so fatigues a soul,

I'd like to take a little trip —

I never have seen the Pole.

‘ Tis said that in that favored place

There is no heat or drouth;

And that, whichever way you turn,

You're looking south-by-south.

Some say there is a flagstaff there,

Some say there is a hole.

Think of the years that I have lived

And never have seen the Pole!

The parson a hundred times is right —

We ought to stay at home.

I'm an old man, I'm eighty-three,

I have no call to roam.

And yet if I could somehow find

The time — God bless my soul!—

I think that I would die content

If I only could see the Pole!

My brother has seen Baraboo,

If so he speak the truth;

My wife and son they both have been

As far as to Duluth;

My cousin cruised to Eastport, Maine,

On a ship that carried coal;

I've been as far as Mackinac —

But I never have seen the Pole!