Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

I. Admiration

The Low-Backed Car

Samuel Lover (1797–1868)

WHEN first I saw sweet Peggy,

’T was on a market day:

A low-backed car she drove, and sat

Upon a truss of hay;

And when that hay was blooming grass

And decked with flowers of spring

No flower was there that could compare

With the blooming girl I sing.

As she sat in the low-backed car,

The man at the turnpike bar

Never asked for the toll,

But just rubbed his ould poll,

And looked after the low-backed car.

In battle’s wild commotion,

The proud and mighty Mars

With hostile scythes demands his tithes

Of death in warlike cars;

While 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.

Sweet Peggy round her car, sir,

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 the low-backed car,

The lovers come near and far,

And envy the chicken

That Peggy is pickin’,

As she sits in the low-backed car.

O, I ’d rather own that car, sir,

With Peggy by my side,

Than a coach and four, and gold galore.

And a lady for my bride;

For a lady would sit forninst me,

On a cushion made with taste,—

While Peggy would sit beside me,

With my arm around her waist,

While we drove in the low-backed car,

To be married by Father Mahar;

O, my heart would beat high

At her glance and her sigh,—

Though it beat in a low-backed car!