[Woody Long]

Yes, quite a few times over the decades. A bit of Americana that apparently is fading into the past.

The Wikipedia article Boston Brahmin here gives a version and attributes it to John Collins Bossidy here.

This was cross posted with Michael. The funny singer he mentions is, I think, Tom Lehrer, who is still alive. Lehrer might well have used the verse.

— Woody

[Orwn Acra]

Yes. ten more characters?

[Max Goodman]

Like R.A., I knew I recognized the verse from some anthology or other, but I was surprised (when I threw my honor system out the window and went to my bookshelf) that of the 5 light verse anthologies I've got that don't focus exclusively on the British, the poem (nearly but not quite identical to the one at the top of the thread) is in 4 of them!

(I originally typed in more information about those books and the poem, but, not sure whether that would queer the results Mike's after, I'm removing all that.)

[Michael Juster]

Thanks Max!

[Kevin Rainbow]

I am not sure if I read/heard it before. If I did, it obviously fled my memory.

[Terese Coe]

Heard it in song on a folkie record, and mainly was impressed with the last two lines.

[Julie Steiner]

Oh. The lecturer didn't say that Sargent was the author--just that the Sargents were one of the Boston Brahmin families (like the Cabots and Lowells).

I didn't see what Max posted above before he pulled it...but according to a 1927 Boston Post article, the poem's author insisted that the definitive version was the one Mike originally posted. Consider me gobsmacked.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Yes, it runs through my head any time I hear "Boston".

But I remember it thus:

And here's to dear old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells speak only to Cabots,
And the Cabots speak only with God.

I may remember it wrong, but that's how I always say it to myself.

[Woody Long]

Janice's version rings a bell with me. I imagine that popular tradition has altered the original to one form or other of "Here's to...", which is the customary introduction to a toast.

My Bartlett's, which quotes the same John Collins Bossidy original as does Wikipedia, has a footnote:

Patterned on the toast given at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Harvard Class of 1880, by a Westerner:

Here's to old Massachusetts.
The home of the sacred cod
Where the Adamses vote for Douglas
And the Cabots walk with God.

I think Bossidy as modified by tradition is the best of the lot.

— Woody

[ross hamilton hill]

Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (/ˈloʊəl/; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the Mayflower.
from Wiki,
I remembered, vaguely, reading the poem in relation to Lowell and checked to make sure.
T. S. Eliot was born into the Eliot family, a Boston Brahmin family with roots in England and New England.
also from Wiki
I also had a recollection of this, those brahmins produced two very good poets.
ps apologies for looking this up, ' honor system' is not used here and it didn't register that this was a test.