Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/134

118 An’ chairs an’ couches be so neat, You mussen teäke em vor a seat: They be so fine, that vo’k mus’ pleäce All over em an’ outer ceäse, An’ then the cover, when ’tis on, Is still too fine to loll upon. &emsp;Ah! gi’e me, if I wer a squier, &emsp;The settle an’ the girt wood vier.

Carpets, indeed! You coulden hurt The stwone-vloor wi’ a little dirt; Vor what wer brought in doors by men, The women soon mopp’d out ageän. Zoo we did come vrom muck an’ mire, An’ walk in straïght avore the vier; But now, a man’s a-kept at door At work a pirty while, avore He’s screäp’d an’ rubb’d, an’ cleän and fit To goo in where his wife do zit. An’ then if he should have a whiff In there, ’twould only breed a miff: He cānt smoke there, vor smoke woon’t goo ’Ithin the footy little flue. &emsp;Ah! gi’e me, if I wer a squier, &emsp;The settle an’ the girt wood vier.

I be a carter, wi’ my whip &emsp;A-smackèn loud, as by my zide, Up over hill, an’ down the dip, &emsp;The heavy lwoad do slowly ride.

An’ I do haul in all the crops, &emsp;An’ I do bring in vuzz vrom down; An’ I do goo vor wood to copse. &emsp;An’ car the corn an’ straw to town.