The Old Cart

The old cart body is lying against the garden fence,
The old cart body is rotten, and it’s not worth eighteen pence,
The cribs and the boxen’s missing, and the wheels and axle’s gone,
Though many’s the load they carried, when they were new and strong.

I have often danced on the sheeting, as the mare she trotted away,
To bring down peat from the boglands wet, which lay right over the brae,
I cracked my whip most merrily, as I gazed down the vale below,
And said ‘Gee up’, to the old bay mare, for she was getting slow.

The meadows were green and growing, and the hay not yet cut down,
And the leaves on the trees were green as well, which yet would turn to brown,
I sigh when I think of the grand old times, before the tractors came,
For they have wrecked our social life, and we’ll ne’er be happy again.

Och, there’s nothing like the young days, when we’re fit for any job,
And there’s nothing like the horse-men, who toiled the acres broad,
For those days and those men have vanished, and the blacksmith too as well,
For how could they make a living, without a hoof to pare.

So goodbye to the old cart body, which was in use so long,
And goodbye to the old bay mare as well, the mare which was limbed so strong,
My whip it has gone forever, and I give it a crack no more,
And leaves they are falling, falling as I lean by the kitchen door.