Loggers, unlike most classes of men, are under the necessity of manufacturing their own songs.[ [11] The mariner, the patriot, the soldier, and the lover have engaged the attention of gifted bards in giving rhyme and measure to their feelings; yet they are not without poetical sentiment. The following is inserted as a specimen of log swamp literature, composed by one of the loggers:
THE LOGGER'S BOAST.
"Come, all ye sons of freedom throughout the State of Maine,
Come, all ye gallant lumbermen, and listen to my strain;
On the banks of the Penobscot, where the rapid waters flow,
O! we'll range the wild woods over, and a lumbering will go;
And a lumbering we'll go, so a lumbering will go,
O! we'll range the wild woods over while a lumbering we go.
When the white frost gilds the valleys, the cold congeals the flood;
When many men have naught to do to earn their families bread;