The sheet credits Joyce Kilmer's original words, Oscar Rasbach's musical setting and Lehrer's adaptation. This entry contains the fifteen-line adaptation, not the original poem printed separately underneath. Deliberate spellings such as pome and purty are retained. Both the original poet and adapter are credited, with separate evidence for the old poem and the later rewritten text.
I reckon I shall never see
A pome as purty as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth finds room
Against old Mother Earth's bazoom,
A tree that looks at God all day,
Because it cannot run away.
A tree that may in summer wear
A mess of buzzards in her hair,
On whose bazoom the snow has lain,
Who now and then shacks up with rain.
Pomes are made by jerks like me,
But only God ---
I said God ---
I mean God ---
Can make a tree.