True, Gregory, but a different version that reverses the Lowells and Cabots.
I come from the city of Boston
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where Cabots speak only to Lowells
And Lowells speak only to God.
However, according to a letter of his, the Reverend Samuel Clarke Bucknell used the following at a dinner in 1915, saying that he had recently heard them in Boston.
I come from good old Boston
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Cabots speak only to the Lowells
And the Lowells speak only to God.
He adds: "My present concern is that Dr Bossidy should have the credit of the authorship of the lines which many have wrongly attributed to me."
Presumably Gavin Ewart was unaware of this letter, and also edited the version attributed to Bucknell.
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i...view=1up;seq=3