But a woe that hovers o ’er us brings a keen and

bitter pain

As we weep to see the lobster vanish off the

coast of Maine.

Oh, dear crustacean dainty of the dodge-holes

of the sea,

I tune my lute in minor in a threnody for thee.

You’ve been the nation’s martyr and ’twas wrong

to treat you so,

And you may not think we love you; yet we