The Farmer’s Boy

The sun went down beyond you hill, across you dreary moor Weary and lane a boy there came up to the farmer's door 'Can you tell me if any there be that will give me employ For to plough and sow, for to reap and mow, and be a farmer's boy And be a farmer's boy?'

'My father's dead and my mother's left with her five children small And what is worse for my mother still, I'm the oldest of the all Though little I am I fear no work, if you'll give me employ For to plough and sow, for to reap and mow, and be a farmer’s boy And be a farmer’s boy.’

‘And if that you won’t me employ, one favour I’ve to ask Will you shelter me till the break of day from this cold winter’s blast? At the break of day I’ll trudge away, elsewhere to seek employ For to plough and sow, for to reap and mow, and be a farmer’s boy And be a farmer’s boy.’

The farmer said, ‘I’ll try the lad, no further let him seek.’ ‘Oh yes, dear father,’ the daughter said, while tears ran down her cheek ‘For them that will work it’s hard to want and wander for employ For to plough and sow, for to reap and mow, and be a farmer’s boy And be a farmer’s boy.’

At length the boy became a man, the good old farmer died He left the lad the farm he had and his daughter to be his bride And now that lad a farmer is, and he smiles and thinks with joy Of the lucky, lucky day he came that way, to be a farmer’s boy To be a farmer’s boy.