BARKS

In FineArt1981 Silent Night Donald is walking around in the neighbourhood singing carols before Christmas but his voice is not very well liked. Especially not by neighbour Jones. Barks took a well known Christmas carol and allowed Donald to quack out the lyrics in his - very special - way:
See-yi-lunt Nee-yight! Ho-yo-lee Nee-yight!
All is ca-hahm, All is buh-rite!
'Round Yon Virgin Mother and Chee-ild,
Ho-oly Yinfunt so tender and bright!

MOHR

The origin of the Christmas carol we know as Silent Night was a poem named Stille Nacht written in 1816 by the Austrian priest Joseph Mohr. He originally intended the poem to be set to music for guitar, but his friend, Franz Xavier Gruber, composed the music for church organ instead. Silent Night has since become the most famous Christmas carol of all time!
Barks used the following passage:
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild.

BARKS

In FC0223 Lost in the Andes Donald and his nephews are on an expedition to find square eggs in a place called Plain Awful. The first citizen they meet is singing:
Oh, Ah wish Ah was in Dixie!
Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixieland Ah'll take Mah Stand
to whoop it up in Dixie!

EMMETT

The song about Dixie (a nickname for the southern United States) was written in 1859 by Daniel Emmett who, incidentally, was from the northern United States. The song became extremely popular and was the unofficial national anthem of the Confederate States of America (the southern states) during the Civil War 1860-1865.
Barks used the following passage:
O, I wish I was in Dixie!
Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie Land I'll take my stand
To live and die in Dixie.

BARKS

In U$49 The Loony Lunar Gold Rush Scrooge encounters a villain who cheats miners out of their claims. The space ship brawl scene was inspired by the poem The Shooting of Dan McGrew. Barks even named the villain Dan McShrew.
Some of Barks' dialogue is inspired from Service's poem; for instance, a miner exclaims:
The boys are whooping it up a bit in that big new jivery!

SERVICE

The American Robert William Service wrote his poem in 1924. The poem is set in an old Western saloon, from where the villainous Dan McGrew cheats the prospectors out of their pokes. The poem tells of one of his victims who enters the saloon for a showdown.
The poem begins with the words:
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon.

BARKS

In WDCS312 The Not-So-Ancient Mariner Donald tries to win a cruise in a contest by reciting a verse from Coleridge's 7-part poem, in which the first part ends with the following two lines:
God save Thee, ancient mariner,
from the fiends that plague Thee thus!
Why lookst Thou so?
With my crossbow I shot the albatross!

COLERIDGE

The poem The Rime of The Ancient Mariner (1797) was written by the American author Samuel Taylor Coleridge and originally titled The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere. It is Coleridge's longest poem, and it marked the beginning of British romantic literature.
It is interesting that the poem as such bears a strong resemblance to the old tale of The Flying Dutchman, which Barks contributed to immortalize in U$25 The Flying Dutchman.

BARKS

In WDCS239 The Village Blacksmith Barks made a pastiche of Longfellow's 8-verse poem by the same title. Longfellow was Barks' favourite lyric poet; he practically grew up with his work as the classroom of his school contained a small library with Longfellow's poems and Charles Dickens' novels.
Barks' personal tribute to the poem was the following two verses:
Under the spreading chestnut tree
the Duckburg smithy stands!
The smithy, a mighty duck is he,
with blisters on his hands!
And the muscles of his brawny arms
are strong as rubber bands!

As toiling, rejoicing, bungling,
onward through life he thumps!
Each morning sees some task begun
that ends up in the dumps!
Something attempted, nothing done,
he has earned his daily lumps!

LONGFELLOW

The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his poem for the magazine Ballads and Other Poems in 1841.
How close Barks came to the original can be understood by reading Longfellow's two corresponding verses:
Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

Ode to the Disney Ducks
By Carl Barks

They ride tall ships to the far away,
and see the long ago.
They walk where fabled people trod,
and Yetis trod the snow.

They meet the folks who live on stars,
and find them much like us,
With food and love and happiness
the things they most discuss.

The world is full of clans and cults
abuzz as angry bees,
And Junior Woodchucks snapping jeers
at Littlest Chickadees.

The ducks show us that part of life
is to forgive a slight.
That black eyes given in revenge
keep hatred burning bright.

So when our walks in sun or shade
pass graveyards filled by wars,
It's nice to stop and read of ducks
whose battles leave no scars.

To read of ducks who parody
our vain attempts at glory,
They don't exist, but somehow leave
us glad we bought their story.