From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, New York: The Macmillan Company; 1925; p. 49.
A SEED-TIME SONG
Sweet spring has come, her days are fair,
Her bluebirds flutter in the air.
The noonday sun upon my lid
Is shining hotter than it did.
The blood of some ancestral gypsy
Is making me a little tipsy.
Spring tickles me and makes me teeter,
Let’s change to some more jazzy meter.
Spring is the time to sharpen up the steel hoes,
Rub up the rakes and oil up the wheel hoes.
I want to garden when I see the neighbors,
Digging in the dirt and singing at their labors;
Old blue jeans and straw hat thatches,
Loosening the loam in old potato patches.
I can kick a spade in spite of my bunions,
I’ll raise some beets, I’ll raise some onions.
I can work a hoe, in spite of my blisters,
In among the corn and the pole bean twisters.
I’ll make a dollar if I make a nickel,
Coaxing along a cucumber pickle.
Stirring up the soil is good for rheumatics,
Good for your liver, your lights and lymphatics.
Even supposing that every crop fails you,
Still the old garden is good for what ails you.