As
I went by the way, weeping for sorrow,
I
saw a ploughman, hanging on to his plough,
His
coat was of coarse stuff, that was called cary,
His
hood was full of holes with his hair hanging out,
He
trod along in knobbed shoes, clouted full thick,
His
hose overhung his hocks, on every side,
All
besmeared with mud, as he ploughed along,
Two
mittens, made of rough stuff,
His
fingers hung out, covered in mud.
He
wallowed in mud almost to the ankle,
He
drove before him four feeble heifers,
Men
might count every rib, so rueful were they,
His
wife walked with him, with a long goad,
In
a short coat, cut full high,
Wrapped
in a winding sheet, to warm her from weather,
Barefoot
on bare ice, so the blood flowed,
And
at the land's end lay a little bowl, [end of the strip]
And
therein lay a little child, wrapped in rags,
And
twins of two years old, upon another side,
And
they sung a song that sorrow was to hear;
They
sung all one song, a miserable note.
The
ploughman sighed sore, and said, "Children be still!"
