Ploughman Singing
Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met
Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,
And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,
Shows not her sleeve of grey to know her bye.
Woke early, I arose and thought that first
In winter time of all the world was I.
The old owls might have hallooed if they durst,
But joy just then was up and whistled bye
A merry tune which I had known full long,
But could not to my memory wake it back,
Until the ploughman changed it to the song.
O happiness, how simple is thy track.
--Tinged like the willow shoots, the east's young brow
Glows red and finds thee singing at the plough.
poem by John Clare
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Related quotes
The Ploughman's Life
As I was a-wand'ring ae morning in spring,
I heard a young ploughman sae sweetly to sing;
And as he was singin', thir words he did say, -
There's nae life like the ploughman's in the month o' sweet May.
The lav'rock in the morning she'll rise frae her nest,
And mount i' the air wi' the dew on her breast,
And wi' the merry ploughman she'll whistle and sing,
And at night she'll return to her nest back again.
poem by Robert Burns
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Ploughman's Life, The
As I was a-wand'ring ae morning in spring,
I heard a young ploughman sae sweetly to sing;
And as he was singin', thir words he did say, -
There's nae life like the ploughman's in the month o' sweet May.
The lav'rock in the morning she'll rise frae her nest,
And mount i' the air wi' the dew on her breast,
And wi' the merry ploughman she'll whistle and sing,
And at night she'll return to her nest back again.
poem by Robert Burns
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The Crow Sat On The Willow
The crow sat on the willow tree
A-lifting up his wings,
And glossy was his coat to see,
And loud the ploughman sings,
'I love my love because I know
The milkmaid she loves me';
And hoarsely croaked the glossy crow
Upon the willow tree.
'I love my love' the ploughman sung,
And all the fields with music rung.
'I love my love, a bonny lass,
She keeps her pails so bright,
And blythe she trips the dewy grass
At morning and at night.
A cotton dress her morning gown,
Her face was rosy health:
She traced the pastures up and down
And nature was her wealth.'
He sung, and turned each furrow down,
His sweetheart's love in cotton gown.
'My love is young and handsome
As any in the town,
She's worth a ploughman's ransom
In the drab cotton gown.'
He sang and turned his furrow oer
And urged his team along,
While on the willow as before
The old crow croaked his song:
The ploughman sung his rustic lay
And sung of Phoebe all the day.
The crow he was in love no doubt
And [so were] many things:
The ploughman finished many a bout,
And lustily he sings,
'My love she is a milking maid
With red rosy cheek;
Of cotton drab her gown was made,
I loved her many a week.'
His milking maid the ploughman sung
Till all the fields around him rung.
poem by John Clare
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The Frightened Ploughman
I went in the fields with the leisure I got,
The stranger might smile but I heeded him not,
The hovel was ready to screen from a shower,
And the book in my pocket was read in an hour.
The bird came for shelter, but soon flew away;
The horse came to look, and seemed happy to stay;
He stood up in quiet, and hung down his head,
And seemed to be hearing the poem I read.
The ploughman would turn from his plough in the day
And wonder what being had come in his way,
To lie on a molehill and read the day long
And laugh out aloud when he'd finished his song.
The pewit turned over and stooped oer my head
Where the raven croaked loud like the ploughman ill-bred,
But the lark high above charmed me all the day long,
So I sat down and joined in the chorus of song.
The foolhardy ploughman I well could endure,
His praise was worth nothing, his censure was poor,
Fame bade me go on and I toiled the day long
Till the fields where he lived should be known in my song.
poem by John Clare
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Bobbie
Gin you're gangin' doon the city
Come next Sabbath afternoon,
An' you'll catch a glimpse o' Tartan
An' you'll hear a skirlin' tune;
An' you'll see a crowd o' laddies
Lookin' verra dour an' staid,
Wi' just here an' there a Cairngorn,
An' a wee tiny speck o' plaid;
Dinna think from their expression
They are on some mission sad
For their thoughts are back wi' Bobbie,
Wi' the braw, brave ploughman lad.
Once again they'll see him treadin'
Dreary-eyed behind the plough,
With his thoughts amonsgt the angels
And a brave light on his brow.
Once again they'll see him sparking
By the burnside and the glen,
Wi' another sort of angel
An' a sonsy lass ye ken.
Aye, a thousand sober Scotsmen
On the Sabbath afternoon,
Will be back again with Bobbie
With a graceless, godlike gloom.
But they'll not tell of his tailin's;
He was human, he was young,
But they'll join him in his dreaming,
And the rare brave songs he sung
Singing songs of bonny Scotland,
That will never fade with time:
Noble thoughts of truth and beauty
That is genius put in rhyme
And they'll love him for his dreaming
Aye, and for his failin's, too,
When their thoughts go back to Bobbie,
Sweetest singer Scotland knew
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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As I Watche'd The Ploughman Ploughing
that hoeing on the earth
his signature onto world pad
that supreme thought
it gets marked onto the earth
only to be picked up
five thousand years from now
by a similar homo sapien
that ploughs the vast tracts of his mind
each haul a synergy between his mind
and the one five thousand years ago
inspiration that gets the world hooked
on each other the mental waves
left in soil, wind, trees
they live on to nourish future minds
as i watched the ploughman ploughing
i know the world would advance
with all its force to get to the truth
the way he turns the earth with his plough
As I Watche'd The Ploughman Ploughing
AS I watch'd the ploughman ploughing,
Or the sower sowing in the fields-or the harvester harvesting,
I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies:
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)
Walt Whitman
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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A Song of Derivations
I come from nothing; but from where
Come the undying thoughts I bear?
Down, through the long links of death and birth,
From the past poets of the earth,
My immortality is there.
I am like the blossom of an hour.
But long, long vanished sun and shower
Awoke my breath i' the young world's air;
I track the past back everywhere
Through seed and flower and seed and flower.
Or I am like a stream that flows
Full of the cold springs that arose
In morning lands, in distant hills;
And down the plain my channel fills
With melting of forgotten snows.
Voices, I have not heard, possessed
My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed
With relics of the far unknown.
And mixed with memories not my own
The sweet streams throng in my breast.
Before this life began to be,
The happy songs that wake in me
Woke long ago and far apart.
Heavily on this little heart
Presses this immortality.
poem by Alice Meynell
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Cupid Turned Ploughman. - From Moschus
His lamp, his bow, and quiver laid aside,
A rustic wallet o'er his shoulders tied,
Sly Cupid, always on new mischief bent,
To the rich field and furrow'd tillage went;
Like any ploughman toil'd the little god,
His tune he whistled, and his wheat he sow'd;
Then sat and laugh'd, and to the skies above
Raising his eye, he thus insulted Jove:
Lay by your hail, your hurtful storms restrain,
And as I bid you let it shine or rain,
Else you again beneath my yoke shall bow,
Feel the sharp goad, and draw the servile plough;
What once Europa was Nannette is now.
poem by Matthew Prior
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The Fox
The shepherd on his journey heard when nigh
His dog among the bushes barking high;
The ploughman ran and gave a hearty shout,
He found a weary fox and beat him out.
The ploughman laughed and would have ploughed him in
But the old shepherd took him for the skin.
He lay upon the furrow stretched for dead,
The old dog lay and licked the wounds that bled,
The ploughman beat him till his ribs would crack,
And then the shepherd slung him at his back;
And when he rested, to his dog's surprise,
The old fox started from his dead disguise;
And while the dog lay panting in the sedge
He up and snapt and bolted through the hedge.
He scampered to the bushes far away;
The shepherd called the ploughman to the fray;
The ploughman wished he had a gun to shoot.
The old dog barked and followed the pursuit.
The shepherd threw his hook and tottered past;
The ploughman ran but none could go so fast;
The woodman threw his faggot from the way
And ceased to chop and wondered at the fray.
But when he saw the dog and heard the cry
He threw his hatchet--but the fox was bye.
The shepherd broke his hook and lost the skin;
He found a badger hole and bolted in.
They tried to dig, but, safe from danger's way,
He lived to chase the hounds another day.
poem by John Clare
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Sayonara Tokyo
(bill cruthchfield/ kintaro nakamura)
Producer for bonnie: eiki uchida. arranged by: kenjirl oda
This song was recorded by bonnie, in london, on 1st aug 1981, it was released as a single in japan. the lyrics are taken from the single sleeve.
Sometimes you were tender, so tender to me
But I was lookin for freedom...just had to be free
Like a baby with a new toy...i was too young to know
I was livin in a dream world where real love cant grow
Now its...
Sayonara tokyo
Its goodbye forever. Ill never be back. never be back
Sayonara tokyo
We cannot live in a memory
Im lookin for love where it finds me
Sayonara tokyo
Time is a train on a one-way track
Im goin away to the cold north
Now it seems such a long time when the miles come between...
The many nameless faces and the places Ive seen...
Bringin yesterdays memories so clear to my mind
I can finally see where my heart was blind
But its...
Sayonara tokyo
Its goodbye forever. Ill never be back. never be back
Sayonara tokyo
We cannot live in a memory
Im lookin for love where it finds me
Sayonara tokyo
Time is a train on a one-way track
Im goin away to the cold north
song performed by by Bonnie Tyler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Grey Thrush at the Door
'Swe-e-et! Swe-e-et!' Low at first and flattering,
Full of soft seductiveness on a wheedling note.
Who comes in mercy now, crumbs of comfort scattering
For a grey bird pleading from a cold, cold throat?
Just a thread of tallow-fat, just a scrap of meat!
Grey thrush is at the door. 'Swe-e-et! Swe-e-et!'
Grey bird, friendly bird, merry bird in summer time,
For summer is a merry time, full of tuneful mirth.
Sunny days are singing days. But winter is a glummer time
With lean days of scant fare; frost has locked the earth.
Song goes as sun goes, and harshly drives the sleet.
Where comes the almoner? 'Swe-e-et! Swe-e-et!'
'Sweet! Sweet!' Now it grows imperious:
A short call, a loud call, impatience in its tone.
Why am I left lingering? See, my plight is serious.
A poor bird all forlorn, starving and alone.
Grey Thrush is a-hungering, begging scraps to eat.
It's far beyond my breakfast time! 'Sweet! Sweet!'
Now a footstep on the floor. Now a sudden fluttering,
And Grey Thrush is waiting there beside the open door.
Kookaburra cocks an eye; greedily he's muttering;
But grey bird is first to swoop upon the proffered store,
A scrap of song in gratitude, then up, and off, away.
And the mendicant has vanished till another frosty day.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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A Rose Arose
Of all that nature’s garden grows
the fairest flower is the Rose,
bending to each breeze that blows.
Rose beauty, joy, together sows, -
‘Tis true, as everybody knows, -
inadequately penned in prose.
For from her crown all colour flows,
her petals pink or red she shows,
with white or amber, golden glows.
‘Tis said, or so the story goes,
her spiny thorns are elf arrows
to scare the sprites from the meadows.
In slumber see her heart enclose
bee’s happiness, in sweet repose,
unsullied by harsh winter snows.
Both dark and bright, white, virgin shows, -
the rose from Paradise arose,
and on Time's wing she blows, she blows.
poem by Jonathan Robin
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To Thomas Woolner
First Snow, February
WOOLNER, to-night it snows for the first time.
Our feet know well the path where in this snow
Mine leave one track: how all the ways we know
Are hoary in the long-unwonted rime!
Grey as their ghosts which now in your new clime
Must haunt you while those singing spirits reap
All night the field of hospitable sleep—
Whose song, past the whole sea, finds counter-chime.
Can the year change, and I not think of thee,
With whom so many changes of the year
So many years were watched—our love's degree
Alone the same? Ah still for thee and me,
Winter or summer, Woolner, here or there,
One grief, one joy, one loss, one victory.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Seagulls [1]
Seagulls are flying from edge tot edge,
their screeching voices call the veldt, the sky the sea
of South Africa stretching east and west
to a carnivorous hunt above the ridges, sea ditches
and small crabs, whose lives are spent in shell crevices, yield
splashing blood, ooze from their guts, their veins with
a little nucleus of skeleton. It was when I walked
facing the sea at its east end with a kind of dredge
of sprinkling sand, strolled through the lathering water
naked legged in the winter water, with a member as bait
under cast moon with rocks itching and scratching my feet
after I saw in my rising eyes the stretches, flattening
of this one land, a country stretching east to west,
(as if no other exists anywhere else)
south to north, wherever I were going
with hillocks, mountains, flashing city lights,
even trees looking somewhat blatantly
as if staring at me with cold winter bitterness.
I know that the sun still turns, until the next day
and the morning will visit as owls or rats to us
in hues of brilliant blue, only in the Cape it will be grey
and I know that day and night the seagulls fly over me
or we or us with wings covering South Africa, the whole
the continent of Africa, even the whole wide world
and their screeching will last until eternity.
[Reference: Owls by Leslie Norris.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Seagulls
Seagulls are flying from edge tot edge,
their screeching voices call the veldt, the sky the sea
of South Africa stretching east and west
to a carnivorous hunt above the ridges, sea ditches
and small crabs, whose lives are spent in shell crevices, yield
splashing blood, ooze from their guts, their veins with
a little nucleus of skeleton. It was when I walked
facing the sea at its east end with a kind of dredge
of sprinkling sand, strolled through the lathering water
naked legged in the winter water, with a member as bait
under cast moon with rocks itching and scratching my feet
after I saw in my rising eyes the stretches, flattening
of this one land, a country stretching east to west,
(as if no other exists anywhere else)
south to north, wherever I were going
with hillocks, mountains, flashing city lights,
even trees looking somewhat blatantly
as if staring at me with cold winter bitterness.
I know that the sun still turns, until the next day
and the morning will visit as owls or rats to us
in hues of brilliant blue, only in the Cape it will be grey
and I know that day and night the seagulls fly over me
or we or us with wings covering South Africa, the whole
the continent of Africa, even the whole wide world
and their screeching will last until eternity.
[Reference: Owls by Leslie Norris.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Mary Ellen Makes The Moment Count
(paul waaktaar)
Mary cries out: for the love of god
As shes walking out of the laundromat
Down the street and its the short way home
Feeling special cause shes so alone
But we know:
(the worlds full of lonely people)
And it shows
(the worlds full of lonely people)
She shrugs her coat off and unlocks the door
Eats her dinner on the kitchen floor
Writes a poem and turns the radio on
Every singer sings the same old song
And it goes:
(the worlds full of lonely people)
And it shows
(the worlds full of lonely people)
But when we she wanted me to go
She just had to let it show
To bring me down if she wanted me to leave
She just wore it on her sleeve
But at least, I was around
But when we she wanted me to go
She just had to let it show
To bring me down if she wanted me to leave
She just wore it on her sleeve
At least, I was around
Mary ellen makes the moment count
As shes looking through old photographs
Pictures taken from an early age
Faces look back at her from the page
And they say
(the worlds full of lonely people)
Its ok
(the worlds full of lonely people)
Its ok
(the worlds full of lonely people)
But when we she wanted me to go
She just had to let it show
To bring me down if she wanted me to leave
She just wore it on her sleeve
But at least, I was around
I was around
I was around
I was around
Mary ellen makes the moment count
song performed by by A-Ha
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The plough gets not well if the ploughman hold it not.
Lorenzo
Once upon a time I made a lion roar -
He was sleeping in the sunbeams on the old zoo floor.
I had gone to see the park where my papa used to play,
Its called called villa borghese and its on the way
To east africa.
Down on grand comoro island, where I grew past four,
I could swim and fish and snorkel on the ocean floor,
And the wind laughed, and the wind laughed through the trees as if to say,
Heres a child wholl want the world to go his way
In east africa, in east africa.
Suddenly for me the world turned upside down -
Far from my friends the lions and the dolphins came this awful sound.
Dark shadows, sounds of thunder raging over me,
Came this monster called a-dre-no-leu-ko-dys-tro-phy
Wheres my east africa?
Well they said, they said, they said (the ones who know it all)
They said from now on for you there will be no more standing tall,
So I took my parents hands, I lifted my head to say
Ill just have to be a hero, theres no other way!
Back to east africa
Back to east africa
Back to east africa
Come with me Im going back, going back to east africa.
song performed by by Phil Collins
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Long Time Ago
Seems like such a long time ago,
I was walking on a lonely road.
Getting tired of dreaming alone,
like all the lonely people I had known.
Seems like such a long time ago,
there was no one who would share my song.
I was just a boy far from home,
but I became a man when you came along.
We spent the whole night talking.
You said you'd like to see the sun rise.
But in the gold of morning,
was nothing that I had not seen in your eyes.
I was so afraid to touch you,
thought you were too young, you know.
So I just watched you sleeping.
Then you woke and said to me,
The night is cold, it frightens me.
I could sleep so easy next to you.
Wasn't very long ago,
you said that you would like to share my role.
Then you started singing my song.
Spent so many nights a-waiting,
Lets not spend a moments wasting time,
because we have very far to go.
I will go if you will take me,
I have never had a lover.
I am young but I am so alone.
We spent the whole night talking.
But in the gold of morning....
song performed by by Jim Croce
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Wild East
(ian hunter)
Well its tuesday night
How Id like to be inside at this time
Watchin t.v. is killin me
Its such a drag tonight
I feel like jason
Just found a rusty fleece
And the cyclops all laughin at me
You cant tame wild east
Wild east wild east
Wild east wild east
Now some cynic from the methadone clinic
He keeps on bothering me
He writes all my lyrics backwards on diapers
And hangs em from the local trees
Watch out, white boy
Dont argue with a sawn off piece
Im a crazy son, mama
I love the grease of wild east
Wild east wild east
Wild east wild east
Wild east wild east
Wild east wild east
Now jezebel dont feel too well, she talks to jane
bout a one way conversation on a subway train
Hey! they took away her wallet and her valise
Love hate, love hate, love hate, love hate, wild east
Wild east wild east
Wild east wild east
Wild east wild east
Wild east come on crazy wild east
(repeat and fade)
song performed by by Ian Hunter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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