Classic Poem

Yankee Doodle sent to Town
His goods for exhibition;
Everybody ran him down,
And laugh'd at his position.

They thought him all the world behind;
A goney, muff, or noodle;
Laugh on, good people, — never mind —
Says quiet Yankee Doodle.
Chorus — Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle Dandy!
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy!

Yankee Doodle had a craft,
A rather tidy clipper,
And he challenged, while they laughed,
The Britishers to whip her.
Their whole yacht-squadron she outsped,
And that on their own water;
Of all the lot she went ahead,
And they came nowhere arter.

O'er Panama there was a scheme
Long talked of, to pursue a
Short route — which many thought a dream —
By Lake Nicaragun.
John Bull discussed the plan on foot,
With slow irresolution,
While Yankee Doodle went and put
It into execution.

A steamer of the Collins line,
A Yankee Doodle's notion,
Has also quickest cut the brine
Across the Atlantic Ocean.
And British Agents, no ways slow
Her merits to discover,
Have been and bought her — just to tow
The Cunard packets over.

Your gunsmiths of their skill may crack,
But that again don't mention:
I guess that Colls' revolvers whack
Their very first invention.
By Yankee Doodle, too, you're beat
Downright in Agriculture,
With his machine for reaping wheat,
Chawed up as by a vulture.

You also fancied, in your pride,
Which truly is tarnation,
Them British locks of yourn defied
The rogues of all creation;
But Chubbs' and Bramah's Hobbs has picked,
And you must now be viewed all
As having been completely licked
By glorious Yankee Doodle.