When you see the vapor pillars link the forest and the sky, You may know the days of sugar making then are drawing nigh; Frosty night and sunny day make the maple pulses play, Till congested with their sweetness, they de- -light to bleed away Oh! Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble goes the pan, Furnish better music for the season if you can, See the golden billows, watch their ebb and flow. Sweetest joys indeed, we sugar makers know. When you see the farmer trudging with his dripping buckets home, You may know the days of sugar making then have fairly come. While the fragrant odors pour through the open kitchen door, How the eager children rally, ever loudly calling: "More!" Oh! Bubble, bubble, ... You may wax it, you may grain it, fix it anyhow to eat You'll always smack your lips and say it's very, very sweet Had David tasted some 'neath his cedar palace dome Maple sweet had got the praises of the honey and the comb. Oh! Bubble, bubble, ... If you say you don't believe it, take a saucer and a spoon, Though you're sourer than a lemon, you'll be sweeter very soon! For the greenest leaves you see, on the spreading maple tree, Though they sip and sip all summer, will the autumn beauties be. Oh! Bubble, bubble, ... And for home, or love, or any kind of sickness, 'tis the thing. Take in allopathic doses and re- -peat it every spring. Until everyone you meet, if at home or on the street, Will have half a mind to bite you, you will look so very sweet! Oh! Bubble, bubble, ... Now today they do the gathering with miles of plastic pipe, Collecting all the sweetness as the sap is getting ripe. Instead of boiling there's osmosis--saving tons of fuel they claim-- But deep within my heart of hearts 'twill always be the same. Oh! Bubble, bubble, ...
recording and notes: Maeve Fairfax (2021) [Vermont Folklife Center]
recording and notes: Pete Sutherland (2020) [Vermont Folklife Center]
recording and notes: Tony Barrand and Amanda Witman (2019) [Vermont Folklife Center]
recording and notes: Deb Flanders (2018) [Vermont Folklife Center]
recording and notes: Dan and Megan MacArthur (2017) [Vermont Folklife Center]
source: bibliographic data for the first edition of Rev. Perrin Betchelder Fisk's poetry collection [Brown University]