Cranberry Bogs
(Barry Reynolds, words; Dillon Bustin, music)

Well, you asked me to sing and to sing you a song
Of how in the marshes we all get along
Bohemians and Irish, Yankees and Dutch
In the cranberry bogs you will find the whole clutch.

cho: Did you ever go down to the cranberry bogs?
Some of the houses are hewn out of logs.
The walls, they are board, sawn from the pine
That grows in the country called the cranberry clime.

When the hay it is cut, and the wheat it is stacked
Cranberries ripen, so our old clothes we'll pack
And away to the marshes to rake we will go
And dance to the music of fiddle and bow.

It's all down to Mercer our tickets to buy
To all our families we will say goodbye;
For profit and fun, our plans to resign
For three or four weeks in the cranberry clime.

All day in the marshes, our rakes we will pull.
We feel the best when our boxes are full.
And in the evening we'll dance 'til we're all tired out
And wish the cranberries would never give out.

Note: Poem composed at the turn of the century by Barry Reynolds of
Wisconsin; set to music by Dillon Buston, 1987.
RG