Lyrics and footnote copied from The Minstrelsy of England by Alfred Moffat, supplemented with historical notes by Frank Kidson (London: Bayley & Ferguson, 1901), page 107:

[With musical notation for one voice and piano.]


THE PRETTY PLOUGHBOY

1. As I was a-walking one morning in spring,
I heard a pretty ploughboy and so sweetly he did sing,
And as he was a-singing, oh! these words I heard him say:
"There's no life like the ploughboy's in the sweet month of May."

2. The lark in the morning she will rise up from her nest.
She'll mount the white air with the dew all on her breast,
And with the pretty ploughboy, oh! 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'll see what the ploughman enjoys in his mind:
The corn he sows grows, and the flowers all do spring,
And the ploughman's as happy as a prince or a king.

4. When his day's work is done that he has had to do,
Perhaps to some wake or fair he will go;
There with a sweet lass, oh, he will dance and sing,
And at night he'll return to his home back again.

This song and air were taken down by Mr. Frank Kidson from the singing of a ploughman in North Yorkshire, and is by permission reprinted from his Traditional Tunes, 1891. The two verses there printed make a Yorkshire version of a song obtained traditionally by Robert burns the poet (see Cromek's Reliques, 1808), but there is a lengthy copy of the song in a garland in the British Museum, from which we take the third and fourth verses.