Come, sons of summer, by whose toile We are the Lords of wine and oile; By whose tough labours and rough hands We rip up first, then reap our lands, Crown’d with the ears of corne, now come, And, to the pipe, sing harvest home. Come forth, my Lord, and see the cart, Drest up with all the country art. {255} See here a maukin, there a sheet As spotless pure as it is sweet; The horses, mares, and frisking fillies, Clad all in linen white as lillies, The harvest swaines and wenches bound For joy to see the hock-cart crown’d. About the cart heare how the rout Of rural younglings raise the shout, Pressing before, some coming after, Those with a shout and these with laughter. Some blesse the cart; some kisse the sheaves Some prank them up with oaken leaves; Some cross the fill-horse; some with great Devotion stroak the home-borne wheat; While other rusticks, lesse attent To prayers than to merryment, Run after with their breeches rent. A verse was sung to start the hock-cart on its way; generally some thing of this kind:— Harvest home, harvest home, We have ploughed, we have sowed; We have reaped, we have mowed, We have brought home every load, Hip, hip, hip, harvest home! In Hampshire it was years ago the custom at the end of harvest to send to the harvest-field a large bottle containing seven or eight gallons of strong beer; and the head carter, while the beer was being discussed, said or sang the lines:— Well ploughed—well sowed, Well reaped—well mowed, Well carried, and Never a load overthro’d. He then raised his hand, and all cheered. This was called the custom of the Hollowing Bottle. {256} For a description of the harvest-home supper we may again turn to Herrick:— Well, on, brave boyes, to your Lord’s hearth Glittering with fire, where, for your mirth, You shall see first the large and cheefe Foundation of your feast, fat beefe; With upper stories, mutton, veale, And bacon, which makes full the meale; With severall dishes standing by, As here a custard, there a pie, And here all-tempting frumentie. And for to make the merry cheer, If smirking wine be wanting here, There’s that which drowns all care, stout beer, Which freely drink to your lord’s health, Then to the plough, the commonwealth, Next to your flails, your fans, your vats; Then to the maids with wheaten hats; To the rough sickle and the crooked scythe, Drink, frolic, boys, till all be blithe. Robert Bloomfield alludes to the horkey-beer as to a brew specially prepared for the occasion:— And Farmer Cheerum went, good man, And broach’d the horkey-beer, And sich a mort of folks began To eat up our good cheer. When supper was finished the horkey-beer was freely sent about the board, with the effect noticed by old Lydgate in his _Story of Thebes_:—“They were in silence for a tyme tyl good ale gan arise.”—Slow tongues are loosened, and the time is passed in songs and mirth.