From Carl Sandberg, The American Songbag (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1927), page 333.

ABALONE

Monterey is a California town of Spanish streets lined with houses of a time when proud Spain ruled the West Coast. Tourist cars run to the House Where Robert Louis Stevenson Lived. In the harbor one may see Italian fishermen mending nets, putting out to sea, coming home with toll taken from deep waters. And roundabout, the pyramids of abalone shells are stacked high. It is a world capital of abalone. At the lunch counters abalone is a favorite dish, a nutritious mollusk. His shell makes shirt buttons by the carload.... From Monterey we go to Carmel-by-the-Sea, past cypress trees, tough twisted torsos lashed by long winds, shapes of storm transfixed with a momentary peace, a picture for pilgrims.... Then at Carmel we may hear Abalone Song, its stanzas chiefly a bequest of George Sterling of San Francisco.... Beach fire singers have flung it with laughter at goblins of the half moon, the rising full moon, and the waning silver crescent.

Arr. H. F. P. [Musical notation is given here for one voice and piano.]

[1] In Carmel Bay the people say,
We feed the Lazzaroni
On caramels, and cockle-shells
And hunks of abalone.

[2] O, some folks boast of quail on toast,
Because they think it's tony;
But my tom-cat gets nice and fat
On hunks of abalone.

[3] He hides in caves, beneath the waves,
His ancient patrimony:
Race suicide will ne'er betide
The fertile abalone.

[4] I telegraph my better half
By Morse or by Marconi
But when in need of greater speed
I send an abalone.

[5] Some folks say that pain is real
And some say that it's phoney;
But as for me, when I can't agree,
I eat an abalone.

[6] Our naval hero, best of all,
His name was Pauley Joney;
He sailed the seas as he darn pleased,
But he never ate abalone.