Come all my Lads and Lasses Let us together go, To the pleasant Corn-field, Our courage for to show, With sickle and with knapsack, So well we clean our Land, The Farmer crys work on Boys Here’s Beer at your command. In a good old Leather Bottle, Of ale that is so brown, We’ll cut and strip together, Until the Sun goes down; Every morning Sun, The small Birds they do sing; The Echoes of their Harmony, Do make the Wood to ring. Young Nanny she came to me, Some wheat-seed for to lase.[57] She is a pretty Creature, I must speak in her Praise: I wish she was some keeper, She is my whole delight In the Groves and Forests, To range both Day and Night. Thus the industrious Farmer By the Sweat of his Brow He labours and endeavours To make his Barley Mow. Sir John produces Liquor, ’Tis very often said, Good Beer makes Good Blood Good Blood makes pretty maid. {254} When Harvest it is over And the Corn secure from Harm And for to go to Market, We must thrash in the Barn. The Flail which we do handle So stoutly we do swing, And after Harvest Supper, So merry we will sing: With good Success to the Farmer, Or else we are to blame, I wish them Health and Happiness, Till Harvest comes again. Beer has always been _the_ drink in the harvest field. Beneath some shelt’ring heap of yellow corn Rests the hoop’d keg, and friendly cooling horn, That mocks alike the goblet’s brittle frame, It’s costlier potions, and its nobler name. To Mary first the brimming draught is given, By toil made welcome as the dews of heaven, And never lip that press’d its homely edge, Had kinder blessings or a heartier pledge. [57] To lase or lease, provincial term for “to glean.” In most parts of England the grain last cut was brought home in the Hock Cart or Horkey Cart. The name “Horkey,” is probably a corruption of “Hock,” and is equivalent to the German _hoch_, the allusion being to the wain piled _high_ with sheaves. The cart decked with ribbons and surmounted with a sheaf dressed up to represent a woman—perhaps Ceres, goddess of the harvest; the horses pranked out in gay trappings; a crowd of labourers and all the youthful inhabitants of the village hurrahing in the wake presented such a scene as that described by Herrick in his poem of the _Hock Cart_:—