Loafers sway with your cold water notions,
Up to the counter and pour down the toddy,
Don’t care a cent for the temperance motions,
Good New Rum won’t hurt any body;
I’ve drank enough to try it right well,
And never died yet, and I don’t b’lieve I shall.
I like a little sometimes to use,
‘Specially when it is hot in mowing,
‘Specially when it is cold as blues,
‘Specially when it is dry and blowing,
‘Specially when it is wet and rainy,
‘Specially when—I can get me any.
I use it for medicine when I am ill,
And I know it’s good, for I’ve always been ailing;
It cures when the Doctor’s drugs would kill,
And it’s good to keep the health from failing;
And e’en Saint Paul says you must take
A little champaigne for your ‘stomach’s-ache.”
So up to the counter! What care we
If the saucy temperance folks should blow us,
They can’t make us look any less than we be,
For we’re small enough now as they’ll see who know us,
And “blessed be nothing,” we lose no fame,
And none can rob us of our good name.
Up, hearties, up, we’ll drink while we can,
None but a ninny sign away freedom,
Glorious liberty’s dear to a man;
As for the cold-water fellows, don’t heed ‘em,
We’ve got rights—if they rob us by law,
Next they know, somebody will get up a war!
Suppose we get merry sometimes, what then?
Or e’en if we happen to sleep in the gutter?
It don’t interfere with the Temperance men,
And if we’re suited why need they to mutter?
The greatest have drank that ever were born,
And ‘tis said even ‘Zadoc the priest took a horn.’
But away with all this, we’ll drink while we will,
And wont try to argufy nothing about it;
The cold-water preachers will keep saying still,
That Rum in’nt good, and we’d best do without it;
But ye see I know better, it’s nothing but hum—
I’ve lived till now, and have always drank rum.
It’s good in the summer to keep a man cool,
It’s good in the winter to keep him from freezing,
And he that won’t use it’s a nateral fool;
Besides being plaguily lacking in reason;
So, Ho! For our sorrow-kill-water and toddy,
We’ll whistle and drink, and we’ll care for nobody.
The Loafer's Song