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- The sun had set behind yon hills,
- Across yon dreary moor,
- Weary and lame, a boy there came
- Up to a farmer's door:
- 'Can you tell me if any there be
- That will give me employ,
- To plow and sow, and reap and mow,
- And be a farmer's boy?
- 'My father is dead, and mother is left
- With five children, great and small;
- And what is worse for mother still,
- I'm the oldest of them all.
- Though little, I'll work as hard as a Turk,
- If you'll give me employ,
- To plow and sow, and reap and mow,
- And be a farmer's boy.
- 'And if that you won't me employ,
- One favour I've to ask, -
- Will you shelter me, till break of day,
- From this cold winter's blast?
- At break of day, I'll trudge away
- Elsewhere to seek employ,
- To plow and sow, and reap and mow,
- And be a farmer's boy.'
- 'Come, try the lad,' the mistress said,
- 'Let him no further seek.'
- 'O, do, dear father!' the daughter cried,
- While tears ran down her cheek:
- 'He'd work if he could, so 'tis hard to want food,
- And wander for employ;
- Don't turn him away, but let him stay,
- And be a farmer's boy.'
- And when the lad became a man,
- The good old farmer died,
- And left the lad the farm he had,
- And his daughter for his bride.
- The lad that was, the farm now has,
- Oft smiles, and thinks with joy
- Of the lucky day he came that way,
- To be a farmer's boy.[7]
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From
a BBC children's programme many years ago.
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