(Tune: "Carcassonne.")
I'm an old man, I'm eighty-three,
I seldom get away;
My work, it keeps me close at home—
I have no time for play.
If it were not for the journey back,
That so fatigues a soul,
I'd like to take a little trip—
I never have seen the Pole.
'Tis said that in that favored place
There is no heat or drouth;
And that, whichever way you turn,
You're looking south-by-south.
Some say there is a flagstaff there,
Some say there is a hole.
Think of the years that I have lived
And never have seen the Pole!
The parson a hundred times is right—
We ought to stay at home.
I'm an old man, I'm eighty-three,
I have no call to roam.
And yet if I could somehow find
The time—God bless my soul!—
I think that I would die content
If I only could see the Pole!
My brother has seen Baraboo,
If so he speak the truth;
My wife and son they both have been
As far as to Duluth;
My cousin cruised to Eastport, Maine,
On a ship that carried coal;
I've been as far as Mackinac—
But I never have seen the Pole!