The sun went down behind yon hill, across yon dreary moor;
Weary and lame a boy there came up to the farmer's door;
Can you tell me if any there be, that will give me employ,
For to plough and sow, for to reap and mow, and be a farmer's boy?"

"My father's dead and mother's left with her five children small.
And what is worse for my mother still, I'm the oldest of them all;
Though little I am, I fear no work, if you'll give me emply,
For to plugh and sow, for to 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 the break of day from this cold winter's blast?
At the break of day I'll trudge away, elsewhere to seek employ
For to plough and sow, for to reap and mow, and be a farmer's boy."

The farmer said, "I'll try the lad, no further let him seek,"
"Oh yes! dear father," the daughter said, while tears ran down her cheek;
For them that will work it's hard to want, and wander for employ
For to plough and sow, for to reap and mow, and be a farmer's boy."

At length the boy became a man, the good old famer died;
He left the lad the farm he had, and his daughter to be his bride;
And now the lad a farmer is, and he smiles and thinks with joy,
Of the luucky, lucky day when he came that way, to be a farmer's boy.

abc | midi | pdf

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Source: Lucy Broadwood and J A Fuller Maitland. 1893, English County Songs, Leadenhall Press, London

Notes:
Words and tune from Mark Wyatt, Enborne

Lucy Broadwood wrote:

The above tune is inserted as an iluustration of the process of alteration which songs often undergo in transmission. Paxton's original tune to this song may be found, almost note for note, in Barrett's Folk Songs, to the words "Ye sons of Albion". Barrett, Kidson, and othe collections, give various tunes to "The Farmer's Boy" and another will be found under 'Sussex'.

Roud: 408 (Search Roud index at VWML) Take Six
Laws:
Child: