Here’s to the Stout Ash Pole
Hooray for to-day, and hooray for to-night, and forget all the rest of it, boys.
Hold on, Mister Barkeeper, close up your jaw, we’re paying for all of this noise.
We won’t mosey out, and we won’t set down, and you can’t keep a one of us still;
You can charge, if you want to, so much for a yawp; we’ll settle all right in the bill.
For this is our very last evenin’ on earth; the last night we’ll be here alive.
To-morrow at six we all cut sticks for the rear of the West Branch drive.
Hooray!
For Seboomook, and rear of the drive.
Oh, bartender, say, can’t you hustle them up?
Come, push out your reddest of paint,
We’re here for to splatter the carnation on, now blow us for fools if we ain’t!
So set out your varnish for coffins, my boy,—
that brand called the “Grave-diggers’ Boast.”
I’ve got enough chink—now down with your drink! and I’ll give ye a riverman’s toast.
While you’re raising up your glasses,
Jest forget the giddy lasses
That have coaxed away your dollars, and have given you the laugh.
Turn away from them connivers,
And as honest, hearty drivers
Drink a good, round jorum to the stout ash staff.
When the girls have filched your cash,
There is still the hearty ash,
It is waiting at Seboomook for to cheer your foolish soul.
Ah, you know we love it most; and I give you this, my toast,
The river driver’s darling, oh, his long ash pole.
We’ve ridden the gorges on rioting logs, and we’ve always swept safe to the land.
So long as we rode with the spikes in our boots, and the long, limber pole in our hand;
We’ve pried at the jams on the brink of the dams, and the pole has stood by like a man,
And then in the dash for our lives in the crash the pole braced us up as we ran,
Hooray!
As we yelled through the smother and ran.
And when in the bellow of up-ending logs it looked like good-by to our souls
We rode back to life from out of the strife, vaulting high on the end of our poles.
Ah, these are the friends that stand by you, my boys: they’re truer than all of the host
Of the fair-spoken gang of the thieves of the town! Crowd up here and drink to my toast!
The girls were sweeter’n honey
Till they gathered in our money,
And the barkeeps they were pleasant just as long as we could spend.
Now it’s quite another story,
—Case of throwdown! But, by glory,
We can drink this final jorum to our stout old friend.
Though the gang has swiped our cash, there is still the hearty ash,
He is waiting at Seboomook for to cheer your foolish soul.
After all, we love him most! and he’s still the last, loud toast
—The driver’s honest helper, oh, the long ash pole.