previous next

103. the Yard-arm Tree.

I.
     O! the trees on the land that grow, that grow,
And the fruits that they produce,
     Demand to be sung with vigor, I know,
For each of them has its use.
     To the oak and the beech much credit is due;
To the birch we have all dropped a tear;
     And, as for the pine, what teachings divine
To its gum-clogged knots adhere!
     But now that treason stalks the shore,
And sails upon the main,
     The tree that most is worth a toast
From all of loyal grain,
     Is the taper Yard-Arm Tree,
That grows on a ship in the sea.

II.
     Up from the Isthmus we steam, we steam,
With treasure in our hold;
     Bars and dust that take no rust,
And nuggets of yellow gold.
     Down on our quarter sweeps a bark
Flaunting the Cotton Flag;
     A rebel bark, with a letter of marque,
And they strive to get our swag;
     But they reckoned without one skipper brave,
And grand it was to see,
     The bloated Cotton blossoms wave
Upon our yard-arm tree.
     So here's to the Yard-Arm Tree,
That grows on a ship in the sea!

--Vanity Fair,

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: