Classic Poem

Oh a shanty man's life is a wearisome life
Although some think it void of care.
Swinging an ax from morning till night,
In the midst of the forests so drear.
Lying in the shanty bleak and cold
While the cold, stormy wintery winds blow,
And as soon as the daylight doth appear,
To the wild woods we must go.

2

Oh, the cook rises up in the middle of the night,
Saying, " Hurray, brave boys, it's day. "
Broken slumbers ofttimes are passed
As the cold winter night passes away.
Had we rum, wine, or beer, our spirits for to cheer
As the days so lonely do dwine,
Or a glass of any shone while in the woods alone
For to cheer up our troubled minds.

3

But when spring it does set in, double hardships then begin,
When the waters are piercing cold,
And our clothes are dripping wet and fingers benumbed,
And our pike-poles we scarcely can hold.
Betwixt rocks, shoals, and sands give employment to all hands
Our well-banded raft for to steer,
And the rapids that we run, oh they seem to us but fun,
For we're void of all slavish fear.