Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

New Zealand Minstrelsy

The Plough

page 33“New Zealand Minstrelsy”: Page 33.

The Plough.

Tune“Buy a Broom.”

To sing of the plough, and the joys thence arising,
With labour made easy, how welcome, I trow;
For long I’ve been sharing hard labour, preparing
My lands, for the pleasure of using the plough.

Of using the plough, of using the plough,
My lands for the pleasure of using the plough.

My grubhoe has long had hard active employment,
In clearing the roots from the old forest ground;
But now, at its leisure, it may rest with pleasure,
Its work is completed, which once did abound.

Which once did abound, &c.

How hard, in the outset, to clear off a forest,
With back often aching, and sweat bedew’d brow;
Such labours got over, I now can discover
How pleasing indeed ’tis to follow the plough.

To follow the plough, &c.

My spade did its duty when only small patches
I tilled; but uniting them all as one now,
My oxen all ready, so active and steady,
Must now give their labour to till with the plough.

To till with the plough, &c.

How many the trials, privations and sorrows,
I’ve often endured from beginning till now;
But since my endeavours are crown’d with high favours,
I’ll smile o’er the past, and sing speed to the plough!

Sing speed to the plough, &c.

Let thoughtless goldhunters make haste for the diggings,
Beguiled by false visions ’mid dangers enow;
But I’ll seek my treasure with comfort and pleasure,
In reaping rich harvests by guiding the plough.

By guiding the plough, &c.