William Barnes Poems

As there I left the road in May,
And took my way along a ground,
I found a glade with girls at play,
By leafy boughs close-hemmed around,
...

News o' grief had overteaken
Dark-eyed Fanny, now vorseaken;
There she zot, wi' breast a-heaven,
While vrom zide to zide, wi' grieven,
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'Ithin the woodlands, flow'ry gleaded,
By the woak tree's mossy moot,
The sheenen grass bleades, timber-sheaded,
Now do quiver under voot;
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Up ste{'a}rs or down below,
I'll zit me in the lwonesome ple{'a}ce,
Where flat-bough'd beech do grow;
Below the beeches' bough, my love,
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When sycamore leaves wer a-spreadèn
Green-ruddy in hedges,
Bezide the red doust o' the ridges,
A-dried at Woak Hill;
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If souls should only sheen so bright
In heaven as in e’thly light,
An’ nothen better wer the cease,
How comely still, in sheape an’ feace,
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THE PRIMRWOSE in the shade do blow,
The cowslip in the zun,
The thyme upon the down do grow,
The clote where streams do run;
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When I led by zummer streams
The pride o' Lea, as naighbours thought her,
While the zun, wi' evenen beams,
Did cast our sheades athirt the water;
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A HAPPY day at Whitsuntide,
As soon ’s the zun begun to vall,
We all stroll’d up the steep hill-zide
To Meldon, gret an’ small;
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When wintry weather's all a-done,
An' brooks do sparkle in the zun,
An' naisy-builden rooks do vlee
Wi' sticks toward their elem tree;
...