The Lark in the Morning

As I was a walking one morning in May,
I heard a pretty damsel these words for to say,
Of all the callings whatever it may be,
No life like a ploughboy all in the month of May.
2
The lark in the morning rises from her nest,
And mounts in the air with the dew round her breast,
And like the pretty ploughboy she'll whistle and sing,
And at night she'll return to her nest back again.
3
When his days work is done that he's got to do,
Perhaps to some country wake he will go,
There with his sweetheart he'll dance and he'll sing,
And then he'll return with his lass back again.
4
And as they return from the wake in the town,
The meadows being mown and the grass cut down,
We chanced to tumble all on the new hay,
It's kiss me now or never the maiden did say.
5
When twenty weeks were over and past,
Her mamma asked her the reason why she thickened in the waist;
It was the pretty ploughboy the damsel did say,
That caused me to tumble on the new mown hay.
6
Come all you pretty maidens wherever you be,
You may trust a ploughboy to any degree,
They're used so much to ploughing their seed for to sow,
That all what employ them are sure to find it grow.
7
So good luck to the ploughboys wherever they may be,
They will take a pretty lass to sit on their knee,
And with a jug of beer they will whistle and sing,
And a ploughboy is as happy as a Prince or a King.

Bodleian Collection, Harding B16(125c), between 1849-1862.
No printer's name.