The Oxen Ploughing

Prithee lend your jocund voices for to listen we're agreed;
Come sing of songs the choicest of the life we ploughboys lead,
There are none that live so merry as the ploughboy does in spring
When he hears the sweet birds whistle and the nightingales to sing

cho: With my hump along! Jump along! Here drives my lad along
Pretty, Sparkle, Berry, Good luck, Speedwell, Cherry,
We are the lads that can follow the plough, oh,
We are the lads that can follow the plow.

In the heat of the daytime it's but little we can do
We lie beside our oxen for an hour or two;
On the banks of sweet violets I'll take my noon-tide rest
And it's I can kiss a pretty girl as hearty as the rest.

When the sun at eve is setting and the shadows fill the vale
THen our throttles we'll be setting with the farmer's humming ale
And the oxen home returning we will send into the stall
When the logs and peat are burning we'll be merry ploughboys all.

Oh the farmer must have seed, sirs, or I swear he cannot sow
And the miller with his mill-wheel is an idle man also
And the huntsman gives up hunting and the tradeszman stands aside
And the poor man's bread is wanting, so 'tis we for all provide.

From English Country Songbook, Palmer
Collected from Adam Landry, Cornwall, 1895
RG
oct97