The Boy and the Sheep

"Lazy sheep, pray tell me why

In the pleasant field you lie,

Eating grass and daisies white,

From the morning till the night:

Everything can something do;

But what kind of use are you?"

"Nay, my little master, nay,

Do not serve me so, I pray!

Don't you see the wool that grows

On my back to make your clothes?

Cold, ah, very cold you'd be,

If you had not wool from me.

"True, it seems a pleasant thing

Nipping daisies in the spring;

But what chilly nights I pass

On the cold and dewy grass,

Or pick my scanty dinner where

All the ground is brown and bare!

"Then the farmer comes at last,

When the merry spring is past,

Cuts my woolly fleece away,

For your coat in wintry day.

Little master, this is why

In the pleasant fields I lie."