William Barnes - Example of Dorset Dialect Poetry

Example of Dorset Dialect Poetry

THE LOVE CHILD

Where the bridge out at Woodley did stride,

Wi' his wide arches' cool sheäded bow,

Up above the clear brook that did slide

By the poppies, befoam'd white as snow;

As the gilcups did quiver among

The white deäsies, a-spread in a sheet.

There a quick-trippèn maïd come along,-

Aye, a girl wi' her light-steppèn veet.

-

An' she cried "I do praÿ, is the road

Out to Lincham on here, by the meäd?"

An' "oh! ees," I meäde answer, an' show'd

Her the way it would turn an' would leäd:

"Goo along by the beech in the nook,

Where the children do plaÿ in the cool,

To the steppèn stwones over the brook,-

Aye, the grey blocks o' rock at the pool."

-

"Then you don't seem a-born an' a-bred,"

I spoke up, "at a place here about;"

And she answer'd wi' cheäks up so red

As a pi'ny leäte a-come out,

"No, I liv'd wi' my uncle that died

Back in Eäpril, an' now I'm a-come

Here to Ham, to my mother, to bide,-

Aye, to her house to vind a new hwome."

-

I'm asheämed that I wanted know

Any more of her childhood or life

But then, why should so feäir a child grow

Where no father did bide wi' his wife;

Then wi' blushes of zunrisèn morn,

She replied "that it midden be known,

"Oh! they zent me awaÿ to be born, -*

Aye, they hid me when some would be shown."

-

Oh! it meäde me a'most teary-ey'd,

An' I vound I a'most could ha' groan'd-

What! so winnèn, an' still cast azide-

What! so lovely, an' not to be own'd;

Oh! a God-gift a-treated wi' scorn

Oh! a child that a squier should own;

An' to zend her awaÿ to be born!-

Aye, to hide her where others be shown!

* Words once spoken to the writer

William Barnes, Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect (June 1879), p.382