Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

The Tough Yankee Tar

HUZZA for the lads of the ocean!

Whose mark is the eagle and star:

They’ll challenge all hands, I’ve a notion,

To beat them at knocks in the war,

With a tough Yankee tar!

Now, braver than Grecian or Roman,

For honour he fears not a scar;

And, damme, he’ll yield him to no man,

While he holds to a timber or spar—

’Tis a tough Yankee tar!

Old Archimedes, he was an ass:

He had ne’er swung a ship from the water,

But broken his lever, and reflectors of brass,

Had he known how to beat up to quarter,

Like a tough Yankee tar!

Now first on the ocean they try hands,

To check haughty Albion’s career;

And soon the poor king of the islands

Yields a proud and a boasted Guerriere

To a tough Yankee tar!

Let them jabber as much as they please,

’Tis all botheration and stuff.

They talk of the rights of the seas;

We’ll teach them ’tis all plain enough

To a tough Yankee tar!

Now Columbia, with proudest emotion,

Hails her young sons of war on the main:

They wave a free flag on the ocean,

And none shall her freedom maintain,

Like a tough Yankee tar!