C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Low-Backed Car
By Samuel Lover (1797–1868)
W
’Twas on a market day;
A low-backed car she drove, and sat
Upon a truss of hay;
But when that hay was blooming grass,
And decked with flowers of spring,
No flower was there
That could compare
To the blooming girl I sing.
As she sat in her low-backed car,
The man at the turnpike bar
Never asked for the toll—
But just rubbed his owld poll,
And looked after the low-backed car!
The proud and mighty Mars
With hostile scythes demands his tithes
Of Death, in warlike cars!
But Peggy—peaceful goddess—
Has darts in her bright eye
That knock men down
In the market town,
As right and left they fly!
While she sits in her low-backed car,
Than battle more dangerous far;
For the doctor’s art
Cannot cure the heart
That is hit from that low-backed car.
Has strings of ducks and geese,
But the scores of hearts she slaughters
By far outnumber these;
While she among her poultry sits,
Just like a turtle dove,—
Well worth the cage,
I do engage,
Of the blooming god of Love.
While she sits in her low-backed car,
The lovers come near and far,
And envy the chicken
That Peggy is pickin’
While she sits in the low-backed car.
With Peggy by my side,
Than a coach and four, and gold galore,
And a lady for my bride;
For the lady would sit forninst me,
On a cushion made with taste,
While Peggy would be beside me,
With my arm around her waist,
As we drove in the low-backed car
To be married by Father Maher.
Oh, my heart would beat high,
At her glance and her sigh,
Though it beat in a low-backed car.