Sunday, August 21, 2011

Is My Team Plowing?

'Is my team ploughing,

That I was used to drive

And hear the harness jingle

When I was man alive?'

Ay, the horses trample,

The harness jingles now;

No change though you lie under

The land you used to plough.

'Is football playing

Along the river shore,

With lads to chase the leather,

Now I stand up no more?'

Ay, the ball is flying,

The lads play heart and soul;

The goal stands up, the keeper

Stands up to keep the goal.

'Is my girl happy,

That I thought hard to leave,

And has she tired of weeping

As she lies down at eve?'

Ay, she lies down lightly,

She lies not down to weep:

Your girl is well contented.

Be still, my lad, and sleep.

'Is my friend hearty,

Now I am thin and pine,

And has he found to sleep in

A better bed than mine?'

Yes, lad, I lie easy,

I lie as lads would choose;

I cheer a dead man's sweetheart,

Never ask me whose.

This poem is a lot racier than it at first seems.  The joke is that “ploughing” can be a euphemism for love-making.  So the title is a double entendre.

This dead guy is worried that things he used to take care of, like his team of plough horses, are being neglected now that he’s gone.  But when he asks his former teammate “Is my team ploughing?” the living guy probably  chuckles to himself.

The football referred to here is soccer or rugby.  This part is NOT a sex joke, but it establishes that the living speaker is probably part of his old team, thus contributing to the title’s double meaning.

Note that the living speaker is trying to get the dead guy to avoid the topic of the girlfriend. He does give a pretty broad hint or two that the girl has a new bed buddy.  “Lightly” by the way, can mean easily, as in she’s an easy conquest.  See Browning’s “A Light Woman.”

The dead guy thinks he’s being sentimental, referring to his grave as his final bed.  The live guy says,  “ Yeah, I found a great place to lie...WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND! Duh!”

So his team, as in his teammate, is ploughing, as in ploughing his girl.

By the way, some etymologists  think the “F” word may have come from an old germanic word for “To Plough.”