Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/98

82 &emsp;An’ mid it never be too high &emsp;Vor our vew zixpences to buy, &emsp;When we do hear our childern cry &emsp;Vor bread, avore nex’ Harvest Hwome. The happy zight,—the merry night, The men’s delight,—the Harvest Hwome.

Wi’ jaÿ o’ heart mid shooters start &emsp;The whirrèn pa’tridges in vlocks; While shots do vlee drough bush an’ tree, &emsp;An’ dogs do stan’ so still as stocks. &emsp;An’ let em ramble round the farms &emsp;Wi’ guns ’ithin their bended eärms, &emsp;In goolden zunsheen free o’ storms, &emsp;Rejaïcèn vor the Harvest Hwome. The happy zight,—the merry night, The men’s delight,—the Harvest Hwome.

Jimmy vow’d he’d have the law Ov ouer cousin Poll’s Jack-daw, That had by day his withy jaïl A-hangèn up upon a naïl, Ageän the elem tree, avore The house, jist over-right the door. An’ twitted vo’k a-passèn by A-most so plaïn as you or I; Vor hardly any day did pass ’Ithout Tom’s teachèn o’m zome sa’ce; Till by-an’-by he call’d em all ‘Soft-polls’ an’ ‘gawkeys,’ girt an’ small.

An’ zoo, as Jim went down along The leäne a-whisslèn ov a zong, The saucy Daw cried out by rote “Girt Soft-poll!” lik’ to split his droat.