Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/342

326 An’ if he do goo over groun’ Wi’ noo soul vor to greet wi’ his words, The feäce o’n do look up an’ down, An’ round en so quick as a bird’s; An’ if he do vall in wi’ vo’k, Why, tidden vor want ov a joke, If he don’t zend em on vrom the pleäce Wi’ a smile or a grin on their feäce: An’ the young wi’ the wold have a-heärd A kind word vrom Gammony Gaÿ.

An’ when he do whissel or hum, ’Ithout thinkèn o’ what he’s a-doèn, He’ll beät his own lags vor a drum, An’ bob his gaÿ head to the tuèn; An’ then you mid zee, ’etween whiles, His feäce all alive wi’ his smiles, An’ his gaÿ-breathèn bozom do rise, An’ his me’th do sheen out ov his eyes: An’ at last to have praïse or have bleäme, Is the seäme to Gammony Gaÿ.

When he drove his wold cart out, an’ broke The nut o’ the wheel at a butt, There war “woo’se things,” he cried, wi’ a joke, “To grieve at than crackèn a nut.” An’ when he tipp’d over a lwoad Ov his reed-sheaves woone day on the rwoad, Then he spet in his han’s, out o’ sleeves, An’ whissel’d, an’ flung up his sheaves, As very vew others can wag, Eärm or lag, but Gammony Gaÿ.

He wer wi’ us woone night when the band Wer a-come vor to gi’e us a hop, An’ he pull’d Grammer out by the hand All down drough the dance vrom the top;