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The Oxen Ploughing 
The Oxen Ploughing 
Prithee lend your jocund voices for to listen we're agreed; Come sing of songs the choicest of the life we ploughboys lead, There are none that live so merry as the ploughboy does in spring When he hears the sweet birds whistle and the nightingales to sing 
cho: With my hump along! Jump along! Here drives my lad along Pretty, Sparkle, Berry, Good luck, Speedwell, Cherry, We are the lads that can follow the plough, oh, We are the lads that can follow the plow. 
In the heat of the daytime it's but little we can do We lie beside our oxen for an hour or two; On the banks of sweet violets I'll take my noon-tide rest And it's I can kiss a pretty girl as hearty as the rest. 
When the sun at eve is setting and the shadows fill the vale THen our throttles we'll be setting with the farmer's humming ale And the oxen home returning we will send into the stall When the logs and peat are burning we'll be merry ploughboys all. 
Oh the farmer must have seed, sirs, or I swear he cannot sow And the miller with his mill-wheel is an idle man also And the huntsman gives up hunting and the tradeszman stands aside And the poor man's bread is wanting, so 'tis we for all provide. 
From English Country Songbook, Palmer Collected from Adam Landry, Cornwall, 1895 oct97