The Jolly Shanty Boy

I am a jolly shanty boy
Who loves to sing and dance.
I wonder what my girls would say
If they could see my pants!

With fourteen patches on the knee
And six upon the stern,
I'll wear them while I'm in the woods
And home when I return.

For I am on my jolly way,
I spend my money free.
I have plenty—come and drink
Lager beer with me.

I'll write my love a letter,
I'll give the ink a tip,
And if that don't fetch her up to time,
I guess I'll let her slip.

For I don't care for rich or poor,
I'm not for strife and grief;
I'm ragged, fat, and lousy, and
As tough as Spanish beef.

Those dark-eyed single lasses,
They think a heap of me.
You ought to see me throw myself
When I go on a spree,

Rigged up like a clipper ship
Sailing round the Horn,
Head and tail up like a steer
Rushing through the corn.

Now to conclude and finish,
I hope I've offended none.
I've told you of my troubles.
Since the day that I begun,

With patched-up clothes and rubber boots
And mud up to the knees,
With lice as big as chili beans
Fighting with the fleas.

Source: Lore of the Lumber Camps, Earl Clifton Beck, 1948 [this is a revised and enlarged edition of Beck's 1941 book, Songs of the Michigan Lumberjacks

Beck's notes:

AMERICA has never been fearful of the pronoun in the ftrst person singular; she has never been short on self-confidence, but the boaster had better make good on his boast.
The rollicking bravado of "The Jolly Shanty Boy" was not uncommon in Bangor, Saginaw, Marinette, and Longview. Among the old-timers who recite it with evident satisfaction are Peter Mahon of Deerfield Center, John Wilson of Gladwin, Jack Kelly of Empire, and Tony Africs of Munising.
In his Cowboy Songs and Frontier Ballads (ii), p. 383, John
Lomax published a similar ballad called "The Happy Miner."

No tune - notes say it was a recitation