Lyr Add: The Farmer's Song

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Farmer's Song
From: Charmion
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 01:27 PM

This is certainly based on "The Lincolnshire Poacher", in which every stanza ends with the line "'Tis my delight on a likely night in the season of the year!" It works to the Poacher tune, too.

Subject: Lyr Add: VERMONT FARMER'S SONG
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Aug 20 - 05:56 PM

Vermont Farmer's Song

From The New Green Mountain Songster,
sent in by Guy Horton of the State Grange,
read by the author, John Saxe, at Hyde's Hotel, Sudbury,
c. 1850 at a public sheepshearing.

Good luck unto the farmers that live among the hills,
Where every man's a sovereign and owns the land he tills,
Where all the girls are beautiful, and all the boys are strong.
'Tis my delight on summer's night to sing the Farmer's Song.

'Tis here the tall and manly Green Mountain boys are seen,
So called because the mountains and not the boys are green.
They always fight to win the right and to resist the wrong.
'Tis my delight on summer's night to sing the Farmer's Song.

'Tis here the best and fairest of Yankee girls are caught,
With every grace and form of face that e'er a lover sought,
And every art to win his heart and hold it long and strong.
'Tis my delight on summer's night to sing the Farmer's Song.

'Tis here the true Merinos of pure imported stock
Are often seen to range the green in many a noble flock.
Their forms are large and beautiful, their wool is fine and strong.
'Tis my delight on summer's night to sing the Farmer's Song.

You've often read the wonders of ancient Rome and Greece,
And Jason's expedition to get the golden fleece.
Alonzo's got the fleece away and brought the sheep along.
'Tis my delight on summer's night to sing the Farmer's Song.

And now a health to the shearers and many joyous years,
Who with a will and ready skill propel their busy shears,
With hearts sincere and conscience clear, with voices loud and strong.
'Tis my delight on summer's night to sing the Farmer's Song.

And now success to Bingham and all true shepherd men,
May heaven keep himself and sheep till shearing comes again.
And then may we be here to see, and help the sport along.
And take delight from morn till night to sing the Farmer's Song,


According to the Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans:

page 245 SAXE, John Godfrey, poet, was born in Highgate, Vt., June 2,
1816. He was brought up on a farm; attended St. Albans (Vt.) grammar
school and Wesleyan university, 1835-36, and was graduated from
Middlebury college, A.B., 1839, A.M., 1842. He studied law at Lockport,
N.Y., and St. Albans, Vt.; was admitted to the bar in St. Albans in
September, 1843, and practised in Franklin county, 1843-50, being also
superintendent of the county schools, 1843-45. He became the proprietor
of the Burlington, Vermont, Sentinel in 1850, which he edited until
1856; was state's attorney for Chittenden county, 1850-51;
attorney-general of Vermont, 1856-59; deputy-collector of customs,
and the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for governor of the state
in 1859 and in 1860. He removed to New York in 1860, and engaged
in literary work and lecturing until 1872, when he removed to Albany
and became editor of the Evening Journal. The honorary degree of LL.D.
was conferred on him by Middlebury college in 1860. He is the author
of many poems which he contributed to the Knickerbocker Magazine;
Harper's Magazine and the Atlantic Monthly. They include: Rhyme of
the Rail; The Briefless [p.245] Barrister; The Proud Miss McBride;
Jerry the Miller; I'm Growing Old; The Old Church Bell, and Treasures
in Heaven. Among his published works are: Progress, A Satirical Poem
(1846); Humorous and Satirical Poems (1850); The Money King and other
Poems (1859); Complete Poems (1861); The Flying Dutchman (1862); Clever
Stories of Many Nations, Reordered in Rhyme (1865); The Times, The
Telegraph, and other Poems (1865); The Masquerade and other Poems
(1866); Fables and Legends of Many Countries (1872), and Leisure-Day
Rhymes (1875). He died at the home of his son, Charles G. Saxe, in
Albany, N.Y., March 31, 1887


http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/boneill/SongTexts/VermontFarmersSong.txt