Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

The Patriotic Diggers—1814

JOHNNY BULL, beware, keep at proper distance,

Else we’ll make you stare at our firm resistance.

Let alone the lads who are freedom toasting;

Recollect, our dads gave you once a basting.

Pickaxe, shovel, spade, crowbar, hoe, and barrow,

Better not invade, Yankees have the marrow.

To protect our rights against your flints and triggers,

See on Brooklyn Heights our patriotic diggers.

Men of every age, colour, and profession,

Ardently engage labour in succession.
Pickaxe, &c.

Grandeur leaves her tower, poverty her hovel,

Here to join their powers with the hoe and shovel.

Here the merchant toils with the patriot sawyer,

There the labourer smiles, near him sweats the lawyer.
Pickaxe, &c.

Here the mason builds Freedom’s shrine of glory,

While the painter gilds the immortal story.

Blacksmiths catch the flame, grocers feel the spirit;

Printers share the fame, and record their merit.
Pickaxe, &c.

Scholars leave their schools, with their patriot teachers;

Farmers seize their tools, headed by their preachers:

How they break the soil! brewers, butchers, bakers;

Here the doctors toil, there the undertakers.
Pickaxe, &c.

Bright Apollo’s sons leave their pipe and tabor,

Mid the roar of guns, join the martial labour.

Round the embattled plain in sweet concord rally,

And, in Freedom’s strain, sing the foe’s finale.
Pickaxe, &c.

Plumbers, founders, dyers, tinmen, turners, shavers,

Sweepers, clerks and criers, jewellers, engravers,

Clothiers, drapers, players, cartmen, hatters, tailors,

Gaugers, sealers, weighers, carpenters and sailors.
Pickaxe, &c.

Better not invade; recollect the spirit

Which our dads display’d, and their sons inherit;

If you still advance, friendly caution slighting,

You may get, by chance, a belly-full of fighting.
Pickaxe, &c.