I’m a-goin’ to leave the country,—

Old folks say ’tis nice and clean,

Nothin’ like its air and sunshine

In the city’s ever seen.

Only filth and smoke and odors,

In the city, they allow,—

But the old folks in the country

Don’t know nothin’, anyhow!

They say there they don’t have sunset

Pictures painted on the sky,

There the birds don’t do their courtin’

In the meadows on the sly;

There’s no hide-and-seek, they tell me,

In the hay upon the mow,—

But the old folks in the country

Don’t know nothin’, anyhow!

There they say the folks are worried,

Till their minds they almost lose.

No one stops his horse to ask you,

All a-smilin’, “What’s the news?”

There they don’t have any neighbors,

When they’re sick, as we do now,—

But the old folks in the country

Don’t know nothin’, anyhow!

They say there is so much sorrow,

Crime and trouble, sin and shame;

But as far as I can reckon,

It’s not the city that’s to blame.

They say folks don’t mind the Bible,

That they’re always in a row,—

But the old folks in the country

Don’t know nothin’, anyhow!

Yes; I said I’d leave the country,

But I’m back again, you see;

Neighbors, birds, and flowers, and sunsets,

They are good enough for me.

Hear that whip-poor-will at vespers?

There, he’s almost over now.

Ah, the old folks in the country

Do know somethin’, anyhow!