Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/90

74 An’ zoo have zome vo’k, in their midnight rambles, A-catch’d the veäiries, then, in theäsem gambols.

Why, yes; but they be off lik’ any shot, So soon’s a man’s a-comèn near the spot.

But in the day-time where do veäiries hide? Where be their hwomes, then? where do veäiries bide

Oh! they do get awaÿ down under ground, In hollow pleäzen where they can’t be vound. But still my gramfer, many years agoo, (He liv’d at Grenley-farm, an milk’d a deäiry), If what the wolder vo’k do tell is true, Woone mornèn eärly vound a veäiry.

An’ did he stop, then, wi’ the good wold bwoy? Or did he soon contrive to slip awoy?

Why, when the vo’k were all asleep, a-bed, The veäiries us’d to come, as ’tis a-zaid, Avore the vire wer cwold, an’ dance an hour Or two at dead o’ night upon the vloor; Var they, by only utterèn a word Or charm, can come down chimney lik’ a bird; Or draw their bodies out so long an’ narrow, That they can vlee drough keyholes lik’ an arrow. An’ zoo woone midnight, when the moon did drow His light drough window, roun’ the vloor below, An’ crickets roun’ the bricken he’th did zing, They come an’ danced about the hall in ring;