Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/120

104 But then the jobs o’ work in wood an’ morter Do come I ’spose, you know, a little shorter; An’ many that wer little farmers then, Be now a-come all down to leäb’rèn men; An’ many leäb’rèn men, wi’ empty hands, Do live lik’ drones upon the worker’s lands.

Aye, if a young chap, woonce, had any wit To try an’ scrape together zome vew pound, To buy some cows an’ teäke a bit o’ ground, He mid become a farmer, bit by bit. But, hang it! now the farms be all so big, An’ bits o’ groun’ so skeä’ce, woone got no scope; If woone could seäve a poun’, woone couldden hope To keep noo live stock but a little pig.

Why here wer vourteen men, zome years agoo, A-kept a-drashèn half the winter drough; An’ now, woone’s drashels be’n’t a bit o’ good. They got machines to drashy wi’, plague teäke em! An’ he that vu’st vound out the way to meäke em, I’d drash his busy zides vor’n if I could! Avore they took away our work, they ought To meäke us up the bread our leäbour bought.

They hadden need meäke poor men’s leäbour less, Vor work a’ready is uncommon skeä’ce.

Ah! Robert! times be badish vor the poor; An’ worse will come, I be a-fear’d, if Moore In theäse year’s almanick do tell us right.

Why then we sartainly must starve. Good night!