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.”