George Townshend's version with notes (from HERE).

The Farmer's Boy   (Roud 408 / Laws Q30)

The sun was set behind yon hill, across yon dreary moor,
When weary and lame, a boy there came up to a farmer's door,
"Can you tell me if any th' be, that will give me employ,
For to plough, to sow, to reap and mow, and t' be a farmer's boy,
And t' be a farmer's boy."

"If you will [will not] me employ, one favour I would ask,
Will you shelter me 'til break of day from this cold winter's blast.
And at break of day, I'll trudge away, elsewhere to seek employ ... "

The farmer's wife cries "Try the lad, let him no further seek"
"Oh yes, dear Father" the daughter cries, as the tears roll down his [her] cheek,
"For for those that will work, it's hard to want, and to wander for employ ...
Don't turn him away, but let him stay, and be a farmer's ... "

In length of time, he grew a man - this good old farmer died,
He left the lad the farm he had and his daughter for his bride,
Now the lad that was - the farmer he is, and he ofttimes smiles with joy,
On that lucky, lucky day that he came that way, for to be a farmer's ...

One of the most popular of collected songs in England (Roud has 153 instances), probably dating from about the 1820s … and it is one of the songs sung by the Boggins prior to the Hood game on January 6th at Haxey, Lincs. It was very common on 19th century broadsides and songsters, and also collected quite regularly in USA and Canada, but not much, apparently, in Scotland. It was once fairly popular in Irish songbooks and ballad sheets, but is seldom sung there now. The known texts vary very little - maybe due to a popular 78 from the 1930s. The tune is apparently Ye Sons of Albion - which dates from the Napoleonic Wars and the earliest record of the song so far is The Lucky Farmer's Boy in the 1832 Catnach catalogue. There 17 sound recordings, only two of which are from Sussex - and the other one is from F H 'Gabriel' Figg, of George's birthplace in East Chiltington.

In mid-Cheshire there is a tradition that the original 'farmer's boy' of the song was the Reverend Thomas Smith, to whose memory there is a tablet in the Baptist Chapel at Little Leigh, near Northwich. He is said to have come to the village 'weary and lame', looking for work. He called at Heath House Farm, was given a job, and in time married the farmer's daughter - just as the song relates. Later he became a Baptist minister and he is buried in the graveyard of the Chapel.

~Masato