THE SAILOR’ S FAREWELL

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

For I am going home,

To keep me warm and dry,

No more on the seas to roam.

Roast beef and turkey free,

And likewise chicken-pie,

Salt junk — farewell to thee!

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

I’ m going to the land

Where ham and eggs they fry;

Veal cutlets are on hand;

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

Roast duck doth there abound,

And mince and apple-pie

In stacks is lyin’ round;

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

I smell the rich roast goose,

A second slice I’ ll try;

A third I shan’ t refuse;

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

Planked shad is very fine;

I’ m in for living high,

On terrapins with wine;

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

I seek my native soil,

For soft-shell crabs I sigh,

And oysters on the broil;

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

Unto the canvas-back

Myself I will apply,

And hickory nuts I’ ll crack;

Of chinquapins no lack;

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

The buckwheat-cake shall boom,

The Jersey sausage fry;

Amid green corn I’ ll bloom,

And hominy consume;

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

I see the cranberry sauce,

All with my mental eye;

Plum-pudding I will boss;

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

Venison on chafing-dish,

With jelly, by the bye,

Coffee and fresh cat-fish;

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

I’ ll soon be on the strand

Where luscious reed birds fly;

My own — my Maryland —

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

Old Ocean with thy foam,

For thee no more I sigh;

For I am going home!

Hard tack and cheese, good-bye!

“That bill o’ fare,” cried Abner Chapin, loud,

“Is pitched too high for this here Northern crowd:

New England rum, I spose, seems rather meek

’ Longside peach-brandy down in Chesapeake.

I don’ t de-cry your vittles, by no means,

But I prefer a pot of pork and beans

To all the canvas-backs that ever flew,

With soft-shell crabs and reed birds thereunto.

And all burnt offerins of fries of lambs

Ain’ t worth a dish of good Rhode Island clams;

And all your Spanish mackerel, my man,

Worth one good mackerel caught off Cape Ann!”

“Talkin’ of mackerel”— Here Peter Young

Broke off this sermon with the “Mackerel Song.”