Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE YANKEE'S RETURN FROM CAMP [JUNE, 1775], by EDWARD BANGS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE YANKEE'S RETURN FROM CAMP [JUNE, 1775], by                    
First Line: Father and I went down to camp
Last Line: Locked up in mother's chamber.
Variant Title(s): Yankee Doodle
Subject(s): American Revolution; United States - Continental Army


FATHER and I went down to camp,
Along with Captain Gooding,
And there we see the men and boys,
As thick as hasty pudding.
Chorus -- Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle, dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.

And there we see a thousand men,
As rich as 'Squire David;
And what they wasted every day
I wish it could be saved.

The 'lasses they eat every day
Would keep an house a winter;
They have as much that, I'll be bound
They eat it when they're a mind to.

And there we see a swamping gun,
Large as a log of maple,
Upon a deuced little cart,
A load for father's cattle.

And every time they shoot it off,
It takes a horn of powder,
And makes a noise like father's gun,
Only a nation louder.

I went as nigh to one myself
As Siah's underpinning;
And father went as nigh again,
I thought the deuce was in him.

Cousin Simon grew so bold,
I thought he would have cocked it;
It scared me so, I shrinked it off,
And hung by father's pocket.

And Captain Davis had a gun,
He kind of clapt his hand on 't,
And stuck a crooked stabbing iron
Upon the little end on 't.

And there I see a pumpkin shell
As big as mother's bason;
And every time they touched it off,
They scampered like the nation.

I see a little barrel, too,
The heads were made of leather,
They knocked upon 't with little clubs,
And called the folks together.

And there was Captain Washington,
And gentlefolks about him,
They say he's grown so tarnal proud
He will not ride without 'em.

He got him on his meeting clothes,
Upon a strapping stallion,
He set the world along in rows,
In hundreds and in millions.

The flaming ribbons in his hat,
They looked so tearing fine ah,
I wanted pockily to get,
To give to my Jemimah.

I see another snarl of men
A digging graves, they told me,
So tarnal long, so tarnal deep,
They 'tended they should hold me.

It scared me so, I hooked it off,
Nor stopped, as I remember,
Nor turned about, till I got home,
Locked up in mother's chamber.





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