1.
As I was walking one morning in the spring,
I heard a young plowman most sweetly to sing,
And as he was singing, these words he did say,
‘No life is like a plowman’s in the month of May.’
2.
The lark in the morning, she rises from her nest,
And mounts in the air with the dew on her breast,
And with the jolly plowman she’ll whistle and she’ll sing,
And at night she’ll return to her nest back again.
3.
If you walk in the fields any pleasure to find,
You may see what the plowman enjoys in his mind;
There the corn he sows grow, and the flowers spring,
And the plowman’s as happy as a prince or a king.
4.
When his days work is done that he has to do,
Perhaps to some country wake he will go;
There with a sweet lass he will dance and sing,
And at night he’ll return with his lass back again.
5.
And as they return from the wake to the town,
Where the meadow is mowed and the grass is cut down,
If they chance for to tumble among the green hay,
It’s ‘kiss me now or never’, the damsel will say.
6.
Then he rises next morning to follow his team,
Like a jolly young plowman so neat and so trim;
If he kiss a pretty girl, he will make her his wife,
And she loves her jolly plowman as dear as her life.
7.
Come Molly and Dolly, let’s away to the wake,
There the plowboys will treat us with beer, ale and cake,
And if in coming home they should gain their ends,
Ne’er fear but they’ll marry, and make us amends.
8.
There’s Molly and Dolly, Nelly and Sue;
There’s Ralph, John and Willy, and young Tommy too.
Each lad takes his lass to the wake or the fair;
Adzooks! they look rarely, I vow and declare.