The jolly English Yellowboy

The jolly English Yellowboy
Is a 'ansome coin when new,
The Yankee Double-eagle
Is large enough for two.
O, these may do for seaport towns,
For cities these may do;
But the dibbs that takes the Hislands
Are the dollars of Peru:
O, the fine Pacific Hislands,
O, the dollars of Peru!
 
It's there we buy the cocoanuts
Mast  'eaded in the blue;
It's there we trap the lasses
All awaiting for the crew;
It's there we buy the trader's rum
What bores a seaman through ... ...
In the fine Pacific Hislands
With the dollars of Peru:
In the fine Pacific Hislands
With the dollars of Peru!
 
Now, messmates, when my watch is up
And I am quite broached to,
I'll give a tip to 'Evving
Of the 'ansome thing to do:
Let 'em just refit this sailor-man
And launch him off anew
To cruise among the Hislands
Of the dollars of Peru:
In the fine Pacific Hislands
With the dollars of Peru!

by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) , "The Fine Pacific Island", from Longman's Magazine, January 1889

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by John Brown Russell Whitfield , "The jolly English Yellowboy", published 1954. [chorus and piano]

Date added to the website: 2008-12-08.

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