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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Ridings by F. W. Moorman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Songs of the Ridings
+
+Author: F. W. Moorman
+
+Release Date: April 2, 2001 [EBook #3232]
+[Most recently updated: November 16, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF THE RIDINGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dave Fawthrop
+
+
+
+
+Songs of the Ridings
+
+by F. W. Moorman
+
+
+I DEDICATE
+THIS VOLUME TO THE
+YORKSHIRE MEMBERS OF THE
+WORKERS’ EDUCATIONAL
+ASSOCIATION
+
+
+Contents
+
+ Preface
+ A Dalesman’s Litany
+ Cambodunum
+ Telling the Bees
+ The Two Lamplighters
+ Our Beck
+ Lord George
+ Jenny Storm
+ The New Englishman
+ The Bells of Kirkby Overblow
+ The gardener and the Robin
+ Lile Doad
+ His last Sail
+ One Year older
+ The Hungry Forties
+ The Flowers of Knaresborough Forest
+ The Miller by the Shore
+ The Bride’s Homecoming
+ The Artist
+ Marra to Bonney
+ Mary Mecca
+ The Local Preacher
+ The Courting Gate
+ Fieldfares
+ A Song of the Yorkshire Dales
+ The Flower of Wensleydale
+
+
+
+
+Preface
+
+
+Abut two years ago I published a collection of Yorkshire dialect poems,
+chosen from many authors and extending over a period of two hundred and
+fifty years[1]. The volume was well received, and there are abundant
+signs that the interest in dialect literature is steadily growing in
+all parts of the county and beyond its borders. What is most
+encouraging is to find that the book has found an entrance into the
+homes of Yorkshire peasants and artisans where the works of our great
+national poets are unknown. I now essay the more venturesome task of
+publishing dialect verses of my own. Most of the poems contained in
+this little volume have appeared, anonymously, in the Yorkshire press,
+and I have now decided to reissue them in book form and with my name on
+the title-page.
+
+A generation ago the minor poet was, in the eyes of most Englishmen, an
+object of ridicule. Dickens and Thackeray had done their worst with
+him: we knew him—or her—as Augustus Snodgrass or Blanche Amory—an
+amiable fool or an unamiable minx. The twentieth century has already,
+in its short course, done much to remove this prejudice, and the minor
+poet is no longer expected to be apologetic; his circle of readers,
+though small, is sympathetic, and the outside public is learning to
+tolerate him and to recognise that it is as natural and wholesome for
+him to write and publish his verses as it is for the minor painter to
+depict and exhibit in public his interpretation of the beauty and power
+which he sees in human life and in nature. All this is clear gain, and
+the time may not be far distant when England will again become what it
+was in Elizabethan days - a nest of singing birds, where te minor poets
+will be able to take their share in the chorus of song, leaving the
+chief parts in the oratorio to the Shakespeares and Spensers of
+tomorrow.
+
+The twenty-five poems of which this volume consists are meant to serve
+a double purpose. Most of them are character-sketches or dramatic
+studies, and my wish is to bring before the notice of my readers the
+habits of mind of certain Yorkshire men and women whose acquaintance I
+have made. For ten years I have gone up hill and down dale in the three
+Ridings, intent on the study of the sounds, words and idioms of the
+local folk-speech. At first my object was purely philological, but soon
+I came to realise that men and women were more interesting than words
+and phrases, and my attention was attracted from dialect speech to
+dialect speakers. Among Yorkshire farmers, farm labourers, fishermen,
+miners and mill workers I discovered a vitality and an outlook upon
+life of which I, a bourgeois professor, had no previous knowledge. Not,
+only had I never met such men before, but I had not read about them in
+literature, or seen their portraits painted on canvas. The wish to give
+a literary interpretation of the world into which I had been privileged
+to enter grew every day more insistent, and this volume is the
+fulfilment of that wish.
+
+Of all forms of literature, whether in Verse or prose, the dramatic
+monologue seemed to me the aptest for the exposition of character and
+habits of mind. It is the creation—or recreation—of Robert Browning,
+the most illuminating interpreter of the workings of the human mind
+that England has produced since Shakespeare died. My first endeavour
+was therefore
+
+to watch
+The Master work, and catch
+Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool’s true play.
+
+I have been, I fear, a clumsy botcher in applying the lessons that
+Browning was able to teach, but the dramatic monologues of which this
+volume is largely composed owe whatever art they may possess to his
+example. My dramatic studies are drawn from life. For example, the
+local preacher who expresses his views on the rival merits of Church
+and Chapel is a Wharfedale acquaintance, and the farmer in _Cambodunum_
+who declares that “eddication’s nowt but muckment” actually expressed
+this view to a Chief Inspector of Schools, a member of the West Riding
+Education Committee, and myself, when we visited him on his farm. I do
+not claim that I have furnished literal transcripts of what I heard in
+my conversations with my heroes and heroines, but my purpose throughout
+has been to hold a mirror up to Nature, to give a faithful
+interpretation of thought and character, and to show my readers some of
+the ply of mind and habits of life that still prevail among
+Yorkshiremen whose individuality has not been blunted by convention and
+who have the courage to express their reasoned or instinctive views of
+life and society.
+
+But the interpretation of the minds of Yorkshire peasants and artisans
+for the benefit of the so-called general reader is only the secondary
+object which I have in view. My primary appeal is not to those who have
+the full chorus of English song, from Chaucer to Masefield, at their
+beck and call, but to a still larger class of men and women who are not
+general readers of literature at all, and for whom most English poetry
+is a closed book. In my dialect wanderings through Yorkshire I
+discovered that while there was a hunger for poetry in the hearts of
+the people, the great masterpieces of our national song made little or
+no appeal to them. They were bidden to a feast of rarest quality and
+profusion, but it consisted of food that they could not assimilate.
+Spenser, Milton, Pope, Keats, Tennyson, all spoke to them in a language
+which they could not understand, and presented to them a world of
+thought and life in which they had no inheritance. But the Yorkshire
+dialect verse which circulated through the dales in chap-book or
+Christmas almanac was welcomed everywhere. Two memories come before my
+mind as I write. One is that of a North Riding farm labourer who knew
+by heart many of the dialect poems of the Eskdale poet, John Castillo,
+and was in the habit of reciting them to himself as he followed the
+plough. The other is that of a blind girl in a West Riding village who
+had committed to memory scores of the poems of John Hartley, and,
+gathering her neighbours round her kitchen fire of a winter evening,
+regaled them with _Bite Bigger_, _Nelly o’ Bob’s_ and other verses of
+the Halifax poet. My object is to add something to this chorus of local
+song. It was the aim of Addison in his _Spectator_ essays to bring
+“philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to
+dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffeehouses”; and,
+in like manner, it should be the aim of the writer of dialect verse to
+bring poetry out of the coteries of the people of leisure and to make
+it dwell in artisans’ tenements and in cottagers’ kitchens. “Poetry,”
+declared Shelley, “is the record of the best and happiest moments of
+the happiest and best minds,” and it is time that the working men and
+women of England were made partakers in this inheritance of wealth and
+joy.
+
+It maybe argued that it should be the aim of our schools and
+universities to educate the working classes to appreciate what is best
+in standard English poetry. I do not deny that much maybe done in this
+way, but let us not forget that something more will be needed than a
+course of instruction in poetic diction and metrical rhythm. Our great
+poets depict a world which is only to a very small extent that of the
+working man. It is a world of courts and drawingrooms and General
+Headquarters, a world of clubs and academies. The working man or woman
+finds a place in this charmed world only if his occupation is that of a
+shepherd, and even then he must be a shepherd of the Golden Age and
+answer to the name of Corydon. Poets, we are solemnly assured by Pope,
+must not describe shepherds as they really are, “but as they may be
+conceived to have been when the best of men followed the employment of
+shepherd.” Class-consciousness—a word often on the lips of our
+democratic leaders of today—has held far too much sway over the minds
+of poets from the Elizabethan age onwards. Spenser writes his _Faerie
+Queene_ “to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle
+discipline,” and Milton’s audience, fit but few, is composed of
+scholars whose ears have been attuned to the harmonies of epic verse
+from their first lisping of Virgilian hexameters, or of latter-day
+Puritans, like John Bright, who overhear in _Paradise Lost_ the echoes
+of a faith that once was stalwart.
+
+But what, it may be asked, of Crabbe, and what of Wordsworth? The
+former by his own confession, paints
+
+the cot,
+As truth will paint it and as bards will not;
+
+but as we listen to his verse tales we can never forget that it is the
+Rev. George Crabbe who is instructing us, or that his pedestal is the
+topmost story of his three-decker pulpit at Aldborough. Wordsworth’s
+sympathy with the lives of the Cumberland peasantry is profound, and
+the time is surely not distant when such a poem as ‘Michael’ will win a
+place in the hearts of working men; but it is to be feared that in his
+own generation “Mr Wudsworth” served rather—as a warning than an
+encouragement to his peasant neighbours. “Many’s the time,” an old
+Cumberland innkeeper told Canon Rawnsley, “I’ve seed him a-takin’ his
+family out in a string, and niver geein’ the deariest bit of notice to
+’em; standin’ by hissel’ an’ stoppin’ behind a-gapin’, wi’ his jaws
+workin’ the whoal time; but niver no crackin’ wi’ ’em, nor no pleasure
+in ’em—a desolate-minded man, ye kna... It was potry as did it.”[2]
+
+Our English non-dramatic poetry from the Renaissance onwards is second
+to none in richness of thought and beauty of diction, but it lacks the
+highest quality of all—universality of interest and appeal. Our poets
+have turned a cold shoulder to the activities and aims of the working
+man, and the working man has, in consequence, turned a cold shoulder to
+the great English classic poets. The loss on either side has been
+great, though it is only now beginning to be realised. “A literature
+which leaves large areas of the national activity and aspiration
+unexpressed is in danger of becoming narrow, esoteric, unhealthy. Areas
+of activity and aspiration unlit by the cleansing sun of art, untended
+by the loving consideration of the poet, will be dungeons for the
+national spirit, mildewed cellars in which rats fight, misers hoard
+their gold, and Guy Fawkes lays his train to blow the superstructure
+sky-high.”[3]
+
+There was a time when poetry meant much more to the working men of
+England. In the later Middle Ages, above all in that fifteenth century
+which literary historians are fond of describing as the darkest period
+in English literature, the working man had won for himself what seemed
+a secure place in poetry. Narrative, lyric and dramatic poetry had all
+opened their portals to him, and made his life and aims their theme.
+Side by side with the courtly verse romances, which were read in the
+bowers of highborn ladies, were the terse and popular ballads, which
+were chanted by minstrels, wandering from town to town and from village
+to village. Among the heroes of these ballads we find that “wight
+yeoman,” Robin Hood, who wages war against mediaeval capitalism, as
+embodied in the persons of the abbot-landholders, and against the class
+legislation of Norman game laws which is enforced by the King’s
+sheriff. The lyric poetry of the century is not the courtly Troubadour
+song or the Petrarchian sonnet, but the folk-song that sings from the
+heart to the heart of the beauty of Alysoun, “seemliest of all things,”
+or, in more convivial mood, accounts good ale of more worth than a
+table set with many dishes:
+
+Bring us in no capon’s flesh, for that is often dear,
+Nor bring us in no duck’s flesh, for they slobber in the mere,
+But bring us in good ale!
+Bring us in good ale, and bring us in good ale;
+For our blessed Lady sake bring us in good ale.
+
+
+Most remarkable of all is the history of the drama in the fourteenth
+and fifteenth centuries. The drama was clerical and not popular in its
+origin, and when, in course of time, it passed out of the hands of the
+clergy it is natural to suppose that it would find a new home at the
+King’s court or the baron’s castle. It did nothing of the kind. It
+passed from the Church to the people, and it was the artisan craftsmen
+of the English towns, organised in their trade-guilds, to whom we owe
+the great cycles of our miracle plays. The authors of these plays were
+restricted to Bible story for their themes, but the popular character
+of their work is everywhere apparent in the manner in which the
+material is handled and the characters conceived. The Noah of the
+Deluge plays is an English master joiner with a shrewish wife, and
+three sons who are his apprentices. When the divine command to build an
+ark comes to him, he sets to work with an energy that drives away “the
+weariness of five hundred winters” and, “ligging on his line,” measures
+his planks, “clenches them with noble new nails”, and takes a
+craftsman’s delight in the finished work:
+
+This work I warant both good and true.[4]
+
+In like manner, the Shepherds of the Nativity plays are conceived and
+fashioned by men who, fortunate in that they knew nothing of the
+seductions of Arcadian pastoralism, have studied at first hand the
+habits and thoughts of English fifteenth-century shepherds, and paint
+these to the life.
+
+Thus, at the close of the Middle Ages, narrative, lyric and dramatic
+poetry seemed firmly established among the people. Not unmindful of
+romance, it was grounded in realism and sought to interpret the life of
+the peasant and the artisan of fifteenth-century England. The
+Renaissance follows, and a profound change comes over poetry. The
+popular note grows fainter and fainter, till at last it becomes
+inaudible. Poetry leaves the farmyard and the craftsman’s bench for the
+court. The folk-song, fashioned in to a thing of wondrous beauty by the
+creator of Amiens, Feste and Autolycus, is driven from the stage by Ben
+Jonson, and its place is taken by a lyric of classic extraction. The
+popular drama, ennobled and made shapely through contact with Latin
+drama, passes from the provincial market-place to Bankside, and the
+rude mechanicals of the trade-guilds yield place to the Lord
+Chamberlain’s players. In the dramas of Shakespeare the popular note is
+still audible, but only as an undertone, furnishing comic relief to the
+romantic amours of courtly lovers or the tragic fall of Princes; with
+Beaumont and Fletcher, and still more with Dryden and the Restoration
+dramatists, the popular element in the drama passes away, and the
+triumph of the court is complete. The Elizabethan court could find no
+use for the popular ballad, but, like other forms of literature, it was
+attracted from the country-side to the city. Forgetful of the
+greenwood, it now battened on the garbage of Newgate, and _Robin Hood
+and Guy of Gisburn_ yields place to _The Wofull Lamentation of William
+Purchas, who for murthering his Mother at Thaxted, was executed at
+Chelmsford_.
+
+We are justly proud of the Renaissance and of the glories of our
+Elizabethan literature, but let us frankly own that in the annals of
+poetry there was loss as well as gain. The gain was for the courtier
+and the scholar, and for all those who, in the centuries that followed
+the Renaissance, have been able, by means of education, to enter into
+the courtier’s and scholar’s inheritance. The loss has been for the
+people. The opposition between courtly taste and popular taste is hard
+to analyse, but we have only to turn our eyes from England to Scotland,
+which lost its royal court in 1603, in order to appreciate the reality
+of the opposition. In Scotland the courtly poetry of the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries soon disappeared when James I exchanged Holyrood
+for Whitehall, but popular poetry continued to live and grow. The
+folk-song gathered power and sweetness all through the seventeenth and
+eighteenth centuries, till it culminated at last in the lyric of Burns.
+Popular drama, never firmly rooted in Scotland, was stamped out by the
+Reformation, but the popular ballad outlived the mediaeval minstrel,
+was kept alive in the homes of Lowland farmers and shepherds, and
+called into being the great ballad revival of the nineteenth century.
+
+It is idle to speculate what would have been the progress of poetry in
+England if the Renaissance had not come and the Elizabethan courtier
+had not enriched himself at the expense of the people. What we have to
+bear in mind is that all through the centuries that followed the
+Renaissance the working men and women of England looked almost in vain
+to their poets for a faithful interpretation of their life and aims.
+The wonder is that the instinct for poetry did not perish in their
+hearts for lack of sustenance.
+
+There are at the present time clear signs of a revival of popular
+poetry and popular drama. The verse tales of Masefield and Gibson, the
+lyrics of Patrick MacGill, the peasant or artisan plays which have been
+produced at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and the Gaiety Theatre,
+Manchester, may well be the beginning of a great democratic literary
+movement. Democracy, in its striving after a richer and fuller life for
+the people of England, is at last turning its attention to literature
+and art. It is slowly realising two great truths. The first is that
+literature may be used as a mighty weapon in the furtherance of
+political justice and social reform, and that the pied pipers of
+folk-song have the power to rouse the nation and charm the ears of even
+the Mother of Parliaments. The second is that the working man needs
+something more to sustain him than bread and the franchise and a fair
+day’s wage for a fair day’s work. Democracy, having obtained for the
+working man a place in the government of the nation, is now asserting
+his claim to a place in the temples of poetry. The Arthurian knight,
+the Renaissance courtier, the scholar and the wit must admit the
+twentieth-century artisan to their circle. Piers the ploughman must
+once more become the hero of song, and Saul Kane, the poacher, must
+find a place, alongside of Tiresias and Merlin, among the seers and
+mystics. Let democracy look to William Morris, poet, artist and social
+democrat, for inspiration and guidance, and take to heart the message
+of prophecy which he has left us: “If art, which is now sick, is to
+live and not die, it must in the future be of the people, for the
+people, by the people.”
+
+In the creation of this poetry “of the people, by the people” dialect
+may well be called upon to play a part. Dialect is of the people,
+though in a varying degree in the different parts of the wide areas of
+the globe where the English language is spoken; it possesses, moreover,
+qualities, and is fraught with associations, which are of the utmost
+value to the poet and to which the standard speech can lay no claim. It
+may be that for some of the more elaborate kinds of poetry, such as the
+formal epic, dialect is useless; let it be reserved, therefore, for
+those kinds which appeal most directly to the hearts of the people. The
+poetry of the people includes the ballad and the verse tale, lyric in
+all its forms, and some kinds of satire; and for all these dialect is a
+fitting instrument. It possesses in the highest degree directness of
+utterance and racy vigour. How much of their force would the “Biglow
+Papers” of J. R. Lowell lose if they were transcribed from the Yankee
+dialect into standard English!
+
+But the highest quality of dialect speech, and that which renders it
+pre-eminently fitted for poetic use, is its intimate association with
+all that lies nearest to the heart of the working man. It is the
+language of his hearth and home; many of the most cherished memories of
+his life are bound up with it; it is for him the language of freedom,
+whereas standard English is that of constraint. In other words, dialect
+is the working man’s poetic diction—a poetic diction as full of savour
+as that of the eighteenth-century poets was flat and insipid.
+
+It is sometimes said that the use of dialect makes the appeal of poetry
+provincial instead of national or universal. This is only true when the
+dialect poet is a pedant and obscures his meaning by fantastic
+spellings. The Lowland Scots element in _Auld Lang Syne_ has not
+prevented it from becoming the song of friendship of the Anglo-Saxon
+race all the world over. Moreover, the provincial note in poetry or
+prose is far from being a bad thing. In the _Idylls_ of Theocritus it
+gave new life to Greek poetry in the third century before Christ, and
+it may render the same high service to English poetry to-day or
+to-morow. The rise of Provincial schools of literature, interpreting
+local life in local idiom, in all parts of the British Isles and in the
+Britain beyond the seas, is a goal worth striving for; such a
+literature, so far from impeding the progress of the literature in the
+standard tongue, would serve only to enrich it in spirit, substance and
+form.
+
+ [1] _Yorkshire Dialect Poems_, 1673-1915 (Sedgwick and Jackson 1916)
+
+ [2] _Reminiscences._
+
+ [3] J. Dover Wilson, Writing in the _Athenæum_ under the pseudonym
+ “Muezzin,” February, 1917. The quotation is from one of four articles,
+ entitled “Prospects in English Literature,” to which the ideas set
+ forth in this Preface owe much.
+
+ [4] “York Plays”: _The Building of the Ark_.
+
+
+
+
+A Dalesman’s Litany
+
+
+From Hull, Halifax, and Hell, good Lord deliver us.
+                                        _A Yorkshire Proverb_.
+
+It’s hard when fowks can’t finnd their wark
+    Wheer they’ve bin bred an’ born;
+When I were young I awlus thowt
+    I’d bide ’mong t’ roots an’ corn.
+But I’ve bin forced to work i’ towns,
+    So here’s my litany:
+Frae Hull, an’ Halifax, an’ Hell,
+    Gooid Lord, deliver me!
+
+When I were courtin’ Mary Ann,
+    T’ owd squire, he says one day:
+“I’ve got no bield[1] for wedded fowks;
+    Choose, wilt ta wed or stay?”
+I couldn’t gie up t’ lass I loved,
+    To t’ town we had to flee:
+Frae Hull, an’ Halifax, an’ Hell,
+    Gooid Lord, deliver me!
+
+I’ve wrowt i’ Leeds an’ Huthersfel’,
+    An’ addled[2] honest brass;
+I’ Bradforth, Keighley, Rotherham,
+    I’ve kept my barns an’ lass.
+I’ve travelled all three Ridin’s round,
+    And once I went to sea:
+Frae forges, mills, an’ coalin’ boats,
+    Gooid Lord, deliver me!
+
+I’ve walked at neet through Sheffield loans,[3]
+    ’T were same as bein’ i’ Hell:
+Furnaces thrast out tongues o’ fire,
+    An’ roared like t’ wind on t’ fell.
+I’ve sammed up coals i’ Barnsley pits,
+    Wi’ muck up to my knee:
+Frae Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham,
+    Gooid Lord, deliver me!
+
+I’ve seen grey fog creep ower Leeds Brig
+    As thick as bastile[4] soup;
+I’ve lived wheer fowks were stowed away
+    Like rabbits in a coop.
+I’ve watched snow float down Bradforth Beck
+    As black as ebiny:
+Frae Hunslet, Holbeck, Wibsey Slack,
+    Gooid Lord, deliver me!
+
+But now, when all wer childer’s fligged,[5]
+    To t’ coontry we’ve coom back.
+There’s fotty mile o’ heathery moor
+    Twix’ us an’ t’ coal-pit slack.
+And when I sit ower t’ fire at neet,
+    I laugh an’ shout wi’ glee:
+Frae Bradforth, Leeds, an Huthersfel’,
+Frae Hull, an’ Halifax, an’ Hell,
+    T’ gooid Lord’s delivered me!
+
+ [1] Shelter.
+
+ [2] Earned.
+
+ [3] Lanes.
+
+ [4] Workhouse.
+
+ [5] Fledged.
+
+
+
+
+Cambodunum
+
+
+Cambodunum is the name of a Roman station, situated on a farm at Slack,
+on the hills above Huddersfield.
+
+Cambodunum, Cambodunum,
+    how I love the sound o’ t’ name!
+Roman sowdiers belt a fort here,
+    gave th’ owd place its lastin’ fame.
+
+We’ve bin lords o’ Cambodunum
+    for well-nigh eight hunderd yeer;
+Fowk say our fore-elders
+    bowt it of a Roman charioteer.
+
+Ay, I know we’re nobbut farmers,
+    mowin’ gerse an’ tentin’ kye,
+But we’re proud of all we’ve stood for
+    i’ yon ages that’s gone by;
+
+Proud of all the slacks we’ve drained,
+    an’ proud of all the walls we’ve belt,
+Proud to think we’ve bred our childer
+    on the ground wheer Romans dwelt.
+
+“Niver pairt wi’ Cambodunum,”
+    that’s what father used to say;
+“If thou does, thou’ll coom to ruin,
+    beg thy breead thro’ day to day.”
+
+I’ll noan pairt wi’ Cambodunum,
+    though its roof lets in the rains,
+An’ its walls wi’ age are totterin’;
+    Cambodunum’s i’ my veins.
+
+Ivery stone about the buildin’
+    has bin dressed by Roman hands,
+An’ red blooid o’ Roman sowdiers
+    has bin temmed[1] out on its lands.
+
+Often, when I ploo i’ springtime,
+    I leet on their buried hoard—
+Coins an’ pottery, combs an’ glasses;
+    once I fan’ a rusty sword.
+
+Whisht! I’ll tell thee what I saw here
+    of a moon-lit winter neet—
+Ghosts o’ Romans i’ their war-gear,
+    wheelin’ slow wi’ silent feet;
+
+Pale their faces, proud their bearin’,
+    an’ a strange gloor i’ their een,
+As they marched past an’ saluted,
+    while th’ east wind blew snell an’ keen.
+
+Dalewards, dalewards, iver dalewards,
+    th’ hill-fowk wander yeer by yeer,
+An’ they toss their heeads an’ flout me,
+    when they see me bidin’ here.
+
+I’ve one answer to their fleerin’:
+    “I’ll noan be a fact’ry slave,
+Breathin’ poison i’ yon wark-shops,
+    diggin’ ivery day my grave.”
+
+“You may addle brass i’ plenty,
+    you’ll noan addle peace o’ mind;
+That sal bide amang us farmers
+    on th’ owd hills you’ve left behind.”
+
+See that place down theer i’ t’ valley,
+    wheer yon chimleys spit out smoke?
+Huthersfield is what they call it,
+    wheer fowk live like pigs i’ t’ poke;
+
+Wheer men grind their hearts to guineas,
+    an’ their mills are awlus thrang,
+Turnin’ neet-time into day-time,
+    niver stoppin’ th’ whole yeer lang.
+
+Cambodunum up on th’ hill-tops,
+    Huthersfield down i’ yon dale;
+One’s a place for free-born Britons,
+    t’other’s ommost like a jail.
+
+Here we live i’ t’ leet an’ sunshine,
+    free as larks i’ t’ sky aboon;
+Theer men tew[2] like mowdiwarps[3]
+    that grub up muck by t’ glent o’ t’ moon.
+
+See yon motor whizzin’ past us,
+    ower th’ owd brig that spans our beck;
+That’s what fowk call modern progress,
+    march o’ human intelleck.
+
+Modern progress, modern ruin!
+    March o’ int’leck, march o’ fooils!
+All that cooms o’ larnin’ childer
+    i’ their colleges an’ schooils.
+
+Eddication! Sanitation!!—
+    teeming brass reight down a sink;
+Eddication’s nowt but muckment,
+    sanitation’s just a stink.
+
+Childer mun have books an’ picturs,
+    bowt at t’ most expensive shops,
+Teliscowps to go star-gazin’,
+    michaelscowps to look at lops.[4]
+
+Farmers munnot put their midden
+    straight afoor their kitchen door;
+Once a week they’re set spring-cleanin’,
+    fettlin’ up their shippen[5] floor.
+
+Women-fowk have taen to knackin’,[6]
+    wilent speyk their mother-tongue,
+Try to talk like chaps i’ t’ powpit,
+    chicken-chisted, wake i’ t’ lung.
+
+Some fowk say I’m too owd-feshioned;
+    mebbe, they are tellin’ true:
+When you’ve lived wi’ ghosts o’ Romans,
+    you’ve no call for owt that’s new.
+
+Weel I know I san’t win t’ vict’ry:
+    son’s agean me, dowters, wife;
+Yit I’ll hold my ground bout flinchin’,
+    feight so long as I have life.
+
+An’ if t’ wick uns are agean me,
+    I sal feight for them that’s deead—
+Roman sowdiers i’ their trenches,
+    lapped i’ mail thro’ foot to heead.
+
+Here I stand for Cambodunum,
+    eagle’s nest on t’ Pennine hills,
+Wagin’ war wi’ modern notions,
+    carin’ nowt for forges, mills.
+
+Deeath alone sal call surrender,
+    stealin’ on me wi’ his hosts,
+And when Deeath has won his battle,
+    I’ll go seek my Roman ghosts.
+
+Then I’ll hear their shout o’ welcome
+    “Here cooms Bob ’o Dick ’o Joe’s,
+Bred an’ born at Cambodunum,
+    held th’owd fort agean his foes;
+
+“Fowt for ancient ways an’ customs,
+    ne’er to feshion bent his knee;
+Oppen t’ ranks, lads, let him enter;
+    he’s a Roman same as we.”
+
+ [1] Poured.
+
+ [2] Slave.
+
+ [3] Moles.
+
+ [4] Fleas.
+
+ [5] Cow-house.
+
+ [6] Affected pronunciation.
+
+
+
+
+Telling the Bees
+
+
+On many Yorkshire farms it was—perhaps still is—the custom to tell the
+bees when a death had taken place in the family. The hive had to be put
+into mourning, and when the arval, or funeral feast, was held, after
+the return from the grave, small portions of everything eaten or drunk
+had to be given to the bees in a saucer. Failure to do this meant
+either the death or departure of the bees.
+
+Whisht! laatle bees, sad tidings I bear,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low ;
+Cauld i’ his grave ligs your maister dear,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.
+Nea mair he’ll ride to t’ soond o’ t’ horn,
+Nea mair he’ll fettle his sickle for t’ corn.
+Nea mair he’ll coom to your skep of a morn,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.
+
+Muther sits cryin’ i’ t’ ingle nook,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low ;
+Parson’s anent her wi’ t’ Holy Book,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.
+T’ mourners are coom, an’ t’ arval is spread,
+Cakes fresh frae t’ yoon,[1] an’ fine havver-bread.
+But toom’[2] is t’ seat at t’ table-head,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.
+
+Look, conny[3] bees, I’s winndin’ black crape,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low ;
+Slowly an’ sadly your skep I mun drape,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.
+Else you will sicken an’ dwine[4] reet away,
+Heart-brokken bees, now your maister is clay ;
+Or, mebbe, you’l leave us wi’ t’ dawn o’ t’ day,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.
+
+Sitha ! I bring you your share o’ our feast,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low;
+Cakes an’ yal[5] an’ wine you mun taste,
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.
+Gie some to t’ queen on her gowlden throne,
+There’s foison to feed both worker an’ drone ;
+Oh ! dean’t let us fend for oursels alone ;
+    Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.
+
+ [1] Oven.
+
+ [2] Empty.
+
+ [3] Darling.
+
+ [4] Waste.
+
+ [5] Ale.
+
+
+
+
+The Two Lamplighters
+
+
+I niver thowt when I grew owd
+    I’d tak to leetin’ lamps;
+I sud have said, I’d rayther pad
+    My hoof on t’ road wi’ tramps.
+But sin I gate that skelp[1] i’ t’ mine,
+    I’m wankle[2] i’ my heead;
+So gaffer said, I’d give ower wark
+    An’ leet town lamps atsteead.
+
+At first, when I were liggin’ snug
+    I’ bed, warm as a bee,
+’T were hard to rise and get agate
+    As sooin as t’ clock strake three.
+An’ I were flaid to hear my steps
+    Echoin’ on ivery wall;
+An’ flaider yet when down by t’ church
+    Ullets would skreek and call.
+
+But now I’m flaid o’ nowt; I love
+    All unkerd[3] sounds o’ t’ neet,
+Frae childer talkin’ i’ their dreams
+    To t’ tramp o’ p’licemen’ feet.
+But most of all I love to hark
+    To t’ song o’ t’ birds at dawn;
+They wakken up afore it gloams,
+    When t’ dew ligs thick on t’ lawn.
+
+If I feel lonesome, up I look
+    To t’ sky aboon my heead;
+An’ theer’s yon stars all glestrin’ breet,
+    Like daisies in a mead.
+But sometimes, when I’m glowerin’ up,
+    I see the Lord hissen;
+He’s doutin’ all yon lamps o’ Heaven
+    That shines on mortal men.
+
+He lowps alang frae star to star,
+    As cobby[4] as can be;
+Mebbe He reckons fowk’s asleep,
+    Wi’ niver an eye to see.
+But I hae catched Him at his wark,
+    For all He maks no din;
+He leaves a track o’ powder’d gowd[5]
+    To show where He has bin.
+
+He’s got big lamps an’ laatle lamps,
+    An’ lamps that twinkles red;
+Im capped to see Him dout ’em all
+    Afore I’m back i’ bed.
+But He don’t laik about His wark,
+    Or stop to hark to t’ birds;
+He minds His business, does the Lord,
+    An’ wastes no gaumless words.
+
+I grow more like Him ivery day,
+    For all I walk so lame;
+An’, happen, there will coom a time
+    I’ll beat Him at His game.
+Thrang as Throp’s wife, I’ll dout my lamps
+    Afore He’s gotten so far;
+An’ then I’ll shout—“I’ve won my race,
+    I’ve bet Him by a star.”
+
+ [1] Blow.
+
+ [2] Unsteady.
+
+ [3] Strange, eerie.
+
+ [4] Active.
+
+ [5] The Milky Way.
+
+
+
+
+Our Beck
+
+
+I niver heerd its name; we call it just “Our beck.”
+    Mebbe, there’s bigger streams down Ripon way;
+But if thou wants clean watter, by my neck!
+    Thou’ll travel far for cleaner, ony day.
+
+Clear watter! Why, when t’ sun is up i’ t’ sky,
+    I’ve seen yon flickerin’ shadows o’ lile trout
+Glidin’ ower t’ shingly boddom. Step thou nigh,
+    An’ gloor at t’ minnows dartin’ in an’ out.
+
+Our beck flows straight frae slacks o’ moorland peat,
+    An’ gethers sweetness out o’ t’ ling an’ gorse;
+At first its voice sounds weantly[1] saft an’ leet,
+    But graws i’ strength wi’ lowpin ower yon force.
+
+Then thou sud see the birds alang its banks—
+    Grey heronsews, that coom to fish at dawn;
+Dippers, that under t’ watter play sike pranks,
+    An’ lang-nebbed curlews, swaimish[2] as a fawn.
+
+Soomtimes I’ve seen young otters leave their holes,
+    An’ laik like kitlins ower the silver dew;
+An’ I’ve watched squirrels climmin’ up the boles
+    O’ beech trees, lowpin’ leet frae beugh to beugh.
+
+Fowers! Why, thou’d fill thy skep,[3] lass, in an hour,
+    Wi’ gowlands, paigles, blobs,[4] an’ sike-like things;
+We’ve daffydills to deck a bridal bower,
+    Pansies, wheer lady-cows[5] can dry their wings.
+
+Young childer often bathe, when t’weather’s fine,
+    Up yonder, wheer t’ owd miller’s bigged his weir;
+I like to see their lish,[6] nakt bodies shine,
+    An’ watch ’em dive i’ t’ watter widoot fear.
+
+Ay, yon’s our brig, bent like an archer’s bow,
+    It’s t’ meetin’ place o’ folk frae near an’ far;
+Young ’uns coom theer wi’ lasses laughin’ low,
+    Owd ’uns to talk o’ politics an’ t’ war.
+
+It’s daft when chaps that sit i’ Parliament
+    Weant tak advice frae lads that talk farm-twang;
+If t’ coontry goes to t’ dogs, it’s ’cause they’ve sent
+    Ower mony city folk to mend what’s wrang.
+
+They’ve taen our day-tale men[7] to feight for t’ land,
+    Then tell us we mun keep our staggarths[8] full.
+What’s lasses, gauvies,[9] greybeards stark[10] i’ t’ hand,
+    To strip wer kye, an’ ploo, an’ tew wi’ t’ shool?[11]
+
+But theer, I’ll nurse my threapin’ while it rains,
+    An’ while my rheumatiz is bad to bide;
+I mun step heamwards now, through t’ yatts[12] an’ lanes,
+    Wheer t’ owd lass waits for me by t’ fireside.
+
+ [1] Strangely.
+
+ [2] Timid.
+
+ [3] Basket.
+
+ [4] Kingcups, cowslips, globe-flowers.
+
+ [5] Ladybirds.
+
+ [6] Smooth.
+
+ [7] Day Labourers.
+
+ [8] Stock Yards.
+
+ [9] Simpletons.
+
+ [10] Stiff.
+
+ [11] Shovel.
+
+ [12] Gates.
+
+
+
+
+Lord George
+
+
+These verses were written soon after the Old Age Pensions Bill came
+into operation.
+
+I’d walk frae here to Skipton,
+    Ten mile o’ clarty[1] lanes,
+If I might see him face to face
+    An’ thank him for his pains.
+He’s ta’en me out o’ t’ Bastile,[2]
+    He’s gi’en me life that’s free:
+Five shill’n a week for fuglin’[3] Death
+    Is what Lord George gives me.
+
+He gives me leet an’ firin’,
+    An’ flour to bak i’ t’ yoon.[4]
+I’ve tea to mesh for ivery meal
+    An’ sup all t’ afternoon.
+I’ve nowt to do but thank him,
+    An’ mak’ a cross wi’ t’ pen;
+Five shillin’ a week for nobbut that!
+    Gow! he’s the jewel o’ men.
+
+I niver mell on pol’tics,
+    But I do love a lord;
+He spends his savin’s like a king,
+    Wheer other fowks ’ll hoard.
+I know a vast o’ widdies
+    That’s seen their seventieth year;
+Lord George, he addles brass for all,
+    Though lots on ’t goes for beer.
+
+If my owd man were livin’,
+    He’d say as I spak true;
+He couldn’t thole them yallow Rads,
+    But awlus voted blue.
+An’ parson’s wife, shoo telled me
+    That we’ll sooin go to t’ poll;
+I hope shoo’s reight; I’ll vote for George,
+    Wi’ all my heart an’ soul.
+
+I don’t know wheer he springs frae,
+    Happen it’s down Leeds way;
+But ivery neet an’ mornin’
+    For his lang life I pray.
+He’s ta’en me out o’ t’ Bastile,
+    He’s gi’en me life that’s free:
+Five shill’n a week for fuglin’ Death
+    Is what Lord George gives me.
+
+ [1] Muddy.
+
+ [2] Workhouse.
+
+ [3] Cheating.
+
+ [4] Oven.
+
+
+
+
+Jenny Storm
+
+
+Young Jenny, she walked ower t’ ribbed sea-sand,
+    (T’ lairocks sing sae sweetly, O!)
+Wheer she met a fisher-lad, net i’ t’ hand,
+    As t’ tide cam hoamin’[1] in.
+
+“Jenny, thy farm is twee mile away;
+    (T’ wing-mouse flits sae featly, O!)
+Say, what is thou latin’[2] at dusk ’o day,
+    When t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.”
+
+“I’s latin’ waif an’ straif[3] by the feam,
+    (O! esh an’ yak are good for bield)
+I’s latin’ timmer to big me a heam,
+    As t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.”
+
+“What for is thou latin’ waif an’ straif?
+    (T’ summer-gauze[4] floats ower hedge an’ field)
+What for is thou biggin’ a heam an’ a hafe,[5]
+    When t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in?”
+
+“To-morn is t’ day when I sal be wed,
+    (T’ bride-wain’s plenished wi’ serge an’ silk)
+Jock’s anchored his boat i’ t’ lang road-stead,
+    An’ t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.
+
+To-morn we gan to t’ kirk on t’ brow,
+    (Nesh satin shoon as white as milk)
+Fisher-folk wi’ me, an’ ploo-lads enow,
+    When t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.”
+
+“Frae thy jilted lad what gift mun thou get?
+    (T’ lairocks sing sae sweetly, O!))
+Twee lucky-steanes, or fine ear-rings o’ jet,
+    When t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in?”
+
+“I’ll tak nayther rings nor steanes frae thee,
+    (T’ wing-mouse flits sae featly, O!)
+But yon token I gave thee gie back to me,
+    Noo t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.”
+
+“Thy token is safe i’ t’ Boggle Nook
+    (T’ sea-mew plains when t’ sun clims doon)
+Thou can finnd it thisel, if thou’ll gan an’ look,
+    When t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.”
+
+Young Jenny, she tripped ower t’ yallow strand,
+    (White ullets[6] dance i’ t’ glent o’ t’ moon)
+Her step was ower leet to dimple t’ sand,
+    As t’ tide cam hoamin’ in.
+
+I’ t’ Boggle Nook lay t’ lad she sud wed;
+    T’ neet-hags skreek sae dowly, O!)
+Foul sea-weed cluthered[7] aboon his head,
+    An’ t’ mouth she had kissed wi’ blood was red,
+As t’ tide cam hoamin’ in.
+
+Nea tear she shed, nea word she spak,
+    (T’ witches gloor sae foully, O!)
+But an awfish[8] laugh flew ower t’ sea-wrack,[9]
+    As t’ tide cam hoamin’ in.
+
+They carried them heam by t’ leet o’ t’ moon,
+    (T’ neet-hags skreek sae dowly, O!)
+Him to his grave on t’ brow aboon,
+Her to yon mad-house i’ Scarbro’ toon,
+    Wheer t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.
+
+ [1] Murmuring.
+
+ [2] Searching for.
+
+ [3] Flotsam and jetsam.
+
+ [4] Gossamer.
+
+ [5] Shelter.
+
+ [6] Owls.
+
+ [7] Tangled.
+
+ [8] Eldritch / hideous.
+
+ [9] Drifts of sea-weed.
+
+
+
+
+The New Englishman
+
+
+I’ve lived all my life i’ Keighley,
+    I’m a Yorkshire artisan;
+An’ when I were just turned seventy
+    I became an Englishman.
+
+Nat’ralised German! nay, deng it!
+    I’m British-born, same as thee!
+But I niver thowt mich to my country,
+    While[1] my country thowt mich to me.
+
+I were proud o’ my lodge an’ my union,
+    An’ proud o’ my town an’ my shire;
+But all t’ consans o’ t’ nation,
+    I left to t’ parson an’ t’ squire.
+
+Class-war were t’ faith that I Iived for,
+    I call’d all capit’lists sharks;
+An’ “T’ workin’ man has no country,”
+    Were my Gospel accordin’ to Marx.
+
+When I’d lossen my job back i’ t’ eighties,
+    An were laikin’ for well-nigh two year,
+Who said that an out-o’-wark fettler
+    Were costin’ his country dear?
+
+Owd England cared nowt about me,
+    I could clem[2] wi’ my barns an’ my wife;
+Shoo were ower thrang wi’ buildin’ up t’ empire
+    To build up a brokken life.
+
+“Ivery man for hissen,” shoo said,
+    “An’ t’ dule can catch what he can;
+Labour’s cheap an’ trade’s worth more
+    Nor t’ life of a workin’ man.”
+
+When t’ country were chuff,[3] an’ boasted
+    That t’ sun niver set on her flags,
+I thowt o’ wer back-to-back houses,
+    Wer childer i’ spetches[4] an’ rags,
+
+When t’ country drave by i’ her carriage,
+    Wi’ flunkies afore an’ behind,
+I left her to bettermy bodies,
+    An’ I gav her a taste o’ my mind.
+
+But when shoo were liggin’ i’ t’ gutter,
+    Wi’ a milit’rist mob at her throit,
+“Hands off her!” I cried, “shoo’s my mother:”
+    An’ I doffed my cap an’ my coit.
+
+I’d gien ower wark at seventy,
+    But I gat agate once more;
+“I’ll live for my country, not on her”
+    Were my words on t’ fettlers’ floor.
+
+Shoo’s putten her trust i’ us workers,
+    We’ll save her, niver fear;
+Feight for her, live for her, dee for her,
+    Her childer that loves her dear.
+
+Eight o’ my grandsons has fallen,
+    My youngest lad’s crippled i’ t’ arm;
+But I’ll give her choose-what[5] shoo axes,
+    Afore I’ll see her tak harm.
+
+T’ war is a curse an’ a blessin’,
+    If fowks could understan’;
+It’s brokken my home an’ my childer,
+    But it’s made me an Englishman.
+
+ [1] Until.
+
+ [2] Starve.
+
+ [3] Arrogant.
+
+ [4] Patches.
+
+ [5] Whatever.
+
+
+
+
+The Bells of Kirkby Overblow
+
+
+Draw back my curtains, Mary,
+    An’ oppen t’ windey wide;
+Ay, ay, I know I’m deein’,
+    While to-morn I’ll hardlins bide.
+But yit afore all’s ovver,
+    An’ I lig cowd as snow,
+I’ll hear once more them owd church bells
+    O’ Kirkby Overblow.
+
+Mony a neet an’ mornin’
+    I’ve heerd yon church bells peal;
+An’ how I’ve threaped an’ cursed ’em
+    When I was strong an’ weel!
+Gert, skelpin’, chunterin’ taistrils,[1]
+    All janglin’ in a row!
+Ay, mony a time I’ve cursed yon bells
+    O’ Kirkby Overblow.
+
+When you hear yon church bells ringin’,
+    You can’t enjoy your sin;
+T’ bells clutches at your heart-strings
+    I’ t’ ale-house ower your gin.
+At pitch-an’-toss you’re laikin’,
+    Down theer i’ t’ wood below;
+An’ then you damn them rowpy[2] bells
+    O’ Kirkby Overblow.
+
+An’ when I’ve set off poachin’
+    At back-end o’ the year,
+Wi’ ferret, bag an’ snickle,[3]
+    Church bells have catched my ear.
+“Thou’s takken t’ road to Hell, lad,
+    Wheer t’ pit-fire’s bumin’ slow;”
+That’s what yon bells kept shoutin’ out
+    At Kirkby Overblow.
+
+But now I’m owd an’ bed-fast,
+    I ommost like their sound,
+Ringin’ so clear i’ t’ star-leet
+    Across the frozzen ground.
+I niver mell on[4] parsons,
+    There ain’t a prayer I know;
+But prayer an’ sarmon’s i’ yon bells
+    O’ Kirkby Overblow.
+
+Six boards o’ gooid stout ellum
+    Is what I’ll want to-morn;
+Then lay me low i’ t’ church-yard
+    Aneath t’ owd crooked thorn.
+I’ll have no funeral sarvice
+    When I’m browt down below,
+But let ’em touzle t’ bells like mad
+    At Kirkby Overblow.
+
+I don’t know wheer I’m boun’ for,
+    It hardlins can be Heaven;
+I’ve sinned more sins nor most men
+    ’Twixt one an’ seven-seven.
+But this I’ll tak my oath on:
+    Wheeriver I mun go,
+I’ll hark to t’ echoes o’ yon bells
+    O’ Kirkby Overblow.
+
+ [1] Unwieldy, grumbling rascals.
+
+ [2] Hoarse.
+
+ [3] Snare.
+
+ [4] Meddle with.
+
+
+
+
+The Gardener and the Robin
+
+
+Why! Bobbie, so thou’s coom agean!
+    I’m fain to see thee here;
+It’s lang sin I’ve set een on thee,
+    It’s ommost hauf a yeer.
+What’s that thou says? Thou’s taen a wife
+    An’ raised a family.
+It seems thou’s gien ’em all the slip
+    Now back-end’s drawin’ nigh.
+
+I mun forgi’e thee; we’re owd friends,
+    An’ fratchin’s not for us;
+Blackbirds an’ spinks[1] I can’t abide,
+    At doves an’ crows I cuss.
+But thou’ll noan steal my strawberries,
+    Or nip my buds o’ plum;
+Most feather-fowl I drive away,
+    But thou can awlus coom.
+
+Ay, that’s thy place, at top o’ t’ clod,
+    Thy heead cocked o’ one side,
+Lookin’ as far-learnt as a judge.
+    Is that a worrm thou’s spied?
+By t’ Megs! he’s well-nigh six inch lang,
+    An’ reed as t’ gate i’ t’ park;
+If thou don’t mesh him up a bit,
+    He’ll gie thee belly-wark.
+
+My missus awlus lets me know
+    I’m noan so despert thin;
+If I ate sausages as thou
+    Eats worrms, I’d brust my skin!
+Howd on! leave soom for t’ mowdiwarps[2]
+    That scrats down under t’ grund ;
+Of worrms, an’ mawks,[3] an’ bummel-clocks[4]
+    Thou’s etten hauf a pund.
+
+So now thou’ll clear thy pipes an’ sing:
+    Grace after meat, I s’pose.
+Thou looks as holy as t’ owd saint
+    I’ church wi’ t’ brokken nose.
+Thou’s plannin’ marlocks[5] all the time,
+    Donned i’ thy sowdier coat;
+An’ what we tak for hymns o’ praise
+    Is just thy fratchin’ note.
+
+I’ve seen thee feightin’ theer on t’ lawn,
+    Beneath yon laurel tree;
+Thy neb was reed wi’ blooid, thou looked
+    As chuffy[6] as could be.
+Thou’s got no mense nor morals, Bob,
+    But weel I know thy charm.
+Ay, thou can stand upon my spade.
+    I’ll niver do thee harm.
+
+ [1] Chaffinches.
+
+ [2] Moles.
+
+ [3] Maggots.
+
+ [4] Beetles.
+
+ [5] Tricks.
+
+ [6] Haughty.
+
+
+
+
+Lile Doad
+
+
+The Lord’s bin hard on me, Sir,
+    He’s stown my barn away.
+O dowly, dowly was that neet
+    He stole lile Doad away!
+
+’Twas Whissuntide we wedded,
+    Next Easter he was born,
+Just as t’ last star i’ t’ April sky
+    Had faded into t’ morn.
+Throstles were singin, canty,[1]
+    For they’d their young i’ t’ nest;
+But birds don’t know a mother’s love
+    That howds her barn to t’ breast.
+
+When wark was ower i’ summer,
+    I nussed him on my knees;
+An’ Mike browt home at lowsin’-time
+    Wild rasps an’ strawberries.
+We used to sit on t’ door-sill
+    I’ t’ leet o’ t’ harvist-moon,
+While our lile Doad would clench his fists
+    An’ suck his toes an’ croon.
+
+But when t’ mell-sheaf[2] was gotten,
+    An’ back-end days set in,
+Wi’ frost at neet an’ roke[3] by day,
+    His face gate pinched an’ thin.
+We niver knew what ailed him,
+    He faded like a floor,
+He faded same as skies’ll fade
+    When t’ sun dips into t’ moor.
+
+Church bells on Kersmas mornin’
+    Rang out so merrily,
+But cowd an’ dreesome were our hearts:
+    We knew lile Doad must dee.
+He lay so still in his creddle,
+    An’ slowly he dwined away,
+While[4] I laid two pennies on his een
+    On Holy Innocents’ Day.
+
+The Lord’s bin hard on me, Sir,
+    He’s stown my barn away.
+O, dowly, dowly was that neet
+    He stole lile Doad away!
+
+ [1] Briskly.
+
+ [2] The last sheaf of the harvest.
+
+ [3] Mist.
+
+ [4] Until.
+
+
+
+
+His Last Sail
+
+
+GRANDFATHER
+
+T’ watter is blue i’ t’ offin’,
+    An’ blue is t’ sky aboon;
+Swallows are settin’ sou’ard,
+    An’ wanin’ is t’ harvist moon.
+Ower lang I’ve bin cowerin’ idle
+    I’ my neuk by t’ fire-side;
+I’ll away yance mair i’ my coble,
+    I’ll away wi’ t’ ebbin’ tide.
+
+MALLY
+
+Nay, Gransir, thoo moant gan sailin’,
+    Thoo mun bide at yam to-neet;
+At eighty-two thoo sudn’t think
+    O’ t’ Whitby fishin’ fleet.
+North cone’s up on t’ flagstaff,
+    There’s a cap-full o’ wind i’ t’ bay;
+T’ waves wap loud on t’ harbour bar,
+    Thoo can hardlins fish to-day.
+
+GRANDFATHER
+
+It’s leansome here i’ t’ hoose, lass,
+    When t’ fisher-folk’s at sea,
+Watchin’ yon eldin[1] set i’ t’ fire
+    Bleeze up, dwine doon, an’ dee.
+An’ t’ sea-gulls they coom flyin’
+    Aboon our red roof-tiles;
+They call me doon the chimley,
+    An’ laugh at other whiles.
+
+“There’s mack’rel oot at sea, lad,”
+    Is what I hear ’em say;
+“Their silver scales are glestrin’ breet,
+    Look oot across the bay;
+But mack’rel’s not for thee, lad,
+    For thoo’s ower weak to sail.”
+My een wi’ saut tears daggle[2]
+    When I hear their mockin’ tale.
+
+MALLY
+
+Dean’t mind their awfish[3] skreekin’,
+    They ’tice folk to their death;
+Then ride aboon yon billows
+    An’ gloor at them beneath.
+They gloor at eenless corpses
+    Slow driftin’ wi’ the tide,
+Deep doon amang the weedy wrack,
+    Wheer t’ scaly fishes glide.
+
+GRANDFATHER
+
+I’d fain lig wi’ my kinsfolk,
+    Fore-elders, brothers, sons,
+Wheer t’ star-fish shine like twinklin’ leets,
+    An’ t’ spring-tide watter runs.
+T’ kirkyard’s good for farm-folk,
+    That ploo an’ milk their kye,
+But I could sleep maist soondly
+    Wheer t’ ships gan sailin’ by.
+
+T’ grave is whisht[4] an’ foulsome,
+    But clean is t’ saut sea-bed;
+Thoo can hark to t’ billows dancin’
+    To t’ tune o’ t’ tide owerhead.
+Yon wreaths o’ floors i’ t’ kirkyard
+    Sean wither an’ fade away,
+But t’ sea-tang wreaths round a droon’d man’s head
+    Will bide while Judgment Day.
+
+Sae fettle[5] my owd blue coble,
+    I kessen’d her “Mornin’ Star,”
+An’ I’ll away through t’ offin’
+    Wheer t’ skooals o’ mack’rel are.
+Thoo can look for my boat i’ t’ harbour,
+    When thoo’s said thy mornin’ psalm;
+Mebbe I’ll fill my fish-creel full—
+    Mebbe I’ll nean coom yam.
+
+ [1] Kindling.
+
+ [2] Grow moist.
+
+ [3] Elfish.
+
+ [4] Silent.
+
+ [5] Get ready.
+
+
+
+
+One Year Older
+
+
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
+    That’s what I sal awlus say.
+Draw thy chair a little nearer,
+    Put yon stockin’s reight away.
+Thou hast done enough i’ thy time,
+    Tewed i’ t’ house an’ wrowt at loom;
+Just for once thou mun sit idle,
+    Feet on t’ hear’stone, fingers toom.[1]
+
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
+    So I promised when we wed.
+Then thy een were glest’rin’ clearer
+    Nor the stars aboon us spread.
+If they’re dimmer now, they’re tend’rer,
+    An’ yon wrinkles on thy face
+Tell a lesson true as t’ Bible,
+    Speik o’ charity an’ grace.
+
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
+    We’ve supped sorrow, tasted joy,
+But our love has grown sincerer,
+    Gethered strength nowt can destroy.
+Love is like an oak i’ t’ forest,
+    Ivery yeer it adds a ring;
+Love is like yon ivin tendrils,
+    Ivery day they closer cling.
+
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
+    Time’s the shuttle, life’s the yarn.
+Have thy crosses seemed severer
+    ’Cause thou niver had a barn?
+Mebbe I sud not have loved thee
+    Hauf so weel, if I mud share
+All our secret thowts wi’ childer,
+    Twinin’ round my owd arm-chair.
+
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
+    ’Tis our gowden weddin’ day.
+There sal coom no gaumless fleerer
+    To break in upon our play.
+Look, I’ve stecked[2] wer door and window
+    Let me lap thee i’ my arms;
+Hushed to-neet be ivery murmur,
+    While my kiss thy pale face warms.
+
+ [1] Empty.
+
+ [2] Latched.
+
+
+
+
+The Hungry Forties
+
+
+Thou wants my vote, young man wi’ t’ carpet-bags,
+    Weel, sit thee down, an’ hark what I’ve to say.
+It’s noan so varry oft wer kitchen flags
+    Are mucked by real live lords down Yelland[1] way.
+
+I’ve read thy speyks i’ t’ paper of a neet,
+    Thou lets a vast o’ words flow off thy tongue;
+Thou’s gotten facts an’ figures, plain as t’ leet,
+    An’ argiments to slocken[2] owd an’ young.
+
+But what are facts an’ figures ’side o’ truths
+    We’ve bowt wi’ childer’ tears an’ brokken lives?
+An’ what are argiments o’ cockered youths
+    To set agean yon groans o’ caitiff[3] wives?
+
+’Twere “hungry forties” when I were a lad,
+    An’ fowks were clemmed, an’ weak i’ t’ airm an’ brain;
+We lived on demick’d[4] taties, bread gone sad,
+    An’ wakkened up o’ neets croodled[5] wi’ pain.
+
+When t’ quartern loaf were raised to one and four,
+    We’d watter-brewis, swedes stown out o’ t’ field;
+Farmers were t’ landlords’ jackals, an’ us poor
+    Tewed in Egyptian bondage unrepealed.
+
+I mind them times when lads marched down our street
+    Wi’ penny loaves on pikes all steeped i’ blooid;
+“It’s breead or blooid,” they cried. “We’ve nowt to eat;
+    To Hell wi’ all that taxes t’ people’s fooid.”
+
+There was a papist duke[6] that com aleng
+    Wi’ curry powders, an’ he telled our boss
+That when fowk’s bellies felt pination’s teng,[7]
+    For breead, yon stinkin’ powders they mun soss.[8]
+
+I went to wark when I were eight yeer owd;
+    I tended galloways an’ sammed up coils.
+’Twere warm i’ t’ pit, aboon ’t were despert cowd,
+    An’ clothes were nobbut spetches,[9] darns an’ hoils.
+
+Thro’ six to eight I worked, then two mile walk
+    Across yon sumpy[10] fields to t’ kitchen door.
+I’ve often fainted, face as white as chalk,
+    Then fall’n lang-length upon wer cobble-floor.
+
+My mother addled seven and six a week,
+    Slavin’ all t’ day at Akeroyd’s weyvin’-shed:
+Fayther at t’ grunstone wrowt, while he fell sick;
+    Steel filin’s gate intul his lungs, he said.
+
+I come thee then no thank for all thy speyks,
+    Thou might as weel have spared thisen thy pains;
+I see no call to laik at ducks an’ drakes
+    Wi’ t’ bitter truth that’s burnt intul our brains.
+
+“Corn laws be damned,” said dad i’ forty-eight;
+    “Corn laws be damned,” say I i’ nineteen-five.
+Tariff reform, choose, how, will have to wait
+    Down Yelland way, so lang as I’m alive.
+
+If thou an’ thine sud tax us workers’ fooid,
+    An’ thrust us back in our owd misery,
+May t’ tears o’ our deead childer thin thy blooid,
+    An’ t’ curse o’ t’ “hungry forties” leet on thee.
+
+ [1] Elland.
+
+ [2] Satiate.
+
+ [3] Infirm.
+
+ [4] Diseased.
+
+ [5] Bent double.
+
+ [6] Duke of Norfolk.
+
+ [7] Sting.
+
+ [8] Sip.
+
+ [9] Patches.
+
+ [10] Swampy.
+
+
+
+
+The Flowers of Knaresborough Forest
+
+
+But now they are moaning, on ilka green loaning
+The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.
+_Jane Elliot_ (1727-1805).
+
+O! day-time is weary, an’ dark o’ dusk dreary
+    For t’ lasses i’ t’ mistal, or rakin’ ower t’ hay;
+When t’ kye coom for strippin’, or t’ yowes for their clippin’,
+    We think on our sowdiers now gone reet away.
+
+The courtin’-gate’s idle, nae lad flings his bridle
+    Ower t’ yak-stoup,[1] an’ sleely cooms seekin’ his may;
+The trod by the river is green as a sliver,[2]
+    For the Flowers o’ the Forest have all stown away.
+
+At Marti’mas hirin’s, nae ribbins, nae tirin’s,
+    When t’ godspenny’s[3] addled, an’ t’ time’s coom for play;
+Nae Cheap-Jacks, nae dancin’, wi’ t’ teamster’ clogs prancin ,
+    The Flowers o’ the Forest are all flown a way.
+
+When at neet church is lowsin’, an’ t’ owd ullet is rousin’
+    Hissel i’ our laithe,[4] wheer he’s slummered all t’ day,
+Wae’s t’ heart! but we misses our lads’ saftest kisses,
+    Now the Flowers o’ the Forest are gone reet away.
+
+Ploo-lads frae Pannal have crossed ower the Channel,
+    Shipperds frae Fewston have taen the King’s pay,
+Thackrays frae Dacre have sold ivery acre;
+    Thou’ll finnd ne’er a delver[5] frae Haverah to Bray.
+
+When t’ north wind is howlin’, an’ t’ west wind is yowlin’,
+    It’s for t’ farm lads at sea that us lasses mun pray;
+Tassey-Will o’ t’ new biggin, keepin’ watch i’ his riggin ,
+    Lile Jock i’ his fo’c’sle, torpedoed i’ t’ bay.
+
+Mony a lass now is weepin’ for her marrow that’s sleepin’,
+    Wi’ nae bield for his corp but the cowd Flanthers clay;
+He’ll ne’er lift his limmers,[6] he’ll ne’er wean his gimmers[7]:
+    Ay, there’s Flowers o’ the Forest are withered away.
+
+ [1] Oak-post.
+
+ [2] Branch of a leafing tree.
+
+ [3] Earnest money.
+
+ [4] Barn.
+
+ [5] Quarryman.
+
+ [6] Wagon-shafts.
+
+ [7] Ewe lambs.
+
+
+
+
+The Miller by the Shore
+an East Coast Chanty
+
+
+The miller by the shore am I,
+    A man o’ despert sense;
+I’ve fotty different soorts o’ ways
+    O’ addlin’ honest pence.
+Good wheat and wuts and barley-corns
+    My mill grinds all t’ day lang ;
+Frae faave ’o t’ morn while seven o’ t’ neet
+    My days are varra thrang.
+
+Chorus
+
+I mill a bit, I till a bit,
+    I dee all maks ’o jobs,
+Frae followin’ ploos and hollowin’ coos
+    To mendin’ chairs and squabs.[1]
+Oh! folks they laugh and girn at me,
+    I niver tak it ill;
+If I’s the Jack ’o ivery trade,
+    They all bring grist to t’ mill.
+
+I tend my hunderd yakker farm,
+    An’ milk my Kyloe kye.
+I’ve Lincoln yowes an’ Leicester tups
+    An’ twenty head ’o wye.[2]
+I’ve stirks to tak to Scarbro’ mart,
+    I’ve meers for farmers’ gigs;
+And oh! I wish that you could see
+    My laatle sookin’ pigs.
+
+I mill a bit. ...
+
+When summer days graws lang an’ breet,
+    Oot cooms my “Noah’s Arks,”
+Wheer city folk undriss theirsels
+    An’ don my bathin’ sarks.[3]
+An’ when they git on land agean,
+    I rub’ em smooth as silk;
+Then bring’ em oot, to fill their weeams,
+    My parkin ceakes an’ milk.
+
+I mill a bit. ...
+
+I pike[4] stray timmer on the shore,
+    An’ cuvins[5] on the scar;
+I know wheer crabs ’ll hugger up,[6]
+    I know wheer t’ lobsters are.
+I’ve cobles fishin’ oot i’ t’ bay,
+    For whitings, dabs and cods,
+I’ve herrin’ trawls and salmon nets,
+    I’ve hooks and lines and rods.
+
+I mill a bit. ...
+
+On darksome neets, back-end ’o t’ yeer,
+    I like another sport;
+I row my boat wheer t’ lugger lies,
+    Coom frae some foreign port;
+A guinea in a coastguard’s poke
+    Will mak him steck his een ;
+So he says nowt when I coom yam
+    Wi’ scent and saccharine.
+
+I mill a bit. ...
+
+ [1] Settles.
+
+ [2] Heifers.
+
+ [3] Shirts.
+
+ [4] Pick up.
+
+ [5] Periwinkles.
+
+ [6] Crowd together.
+
+
+
+
+The Bride’s Homecoming
+
+
+        A weddin’, a woo,
+        A clog an’ a shoe,
+A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!
+            _A Yorkshire Wedding-Rhyme_.
+
+Thoo mun hod on tight, my darlin’,
+    We’ve mony a beck to cross;
+Twix’ thy father’s hoose an’ mine, love,
+    There’s a vast o’ slacks an’ moss.
+But t’ awd mare, shoo weant whemmle[1]
+    Though there’s twee on her back astride;
+Shoo’s as prood as me, is Snowball,
+    Noo I’s fetchin’ heame my bride.
+        A weddin’, a woo,
+        A clog an’ a shoe,
+A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!
+
+Gow! but I feel sae leetsome,
+    Sin I’ve lived to see this day;
+My heart is like a blackbod’s
+    Efter a shoor i’ May.
+I’ t’ sky aboon nea lairock
+    Has sae mich reet to sing
+As I have, noo I’ve wedded
+    T’ lile lass o’ Fulsa Ing.
+        A weddin’, a woo,
+        A clog an’ a shoe,
+A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!
+
+Does ta hear yon watter bubblin’,
+    Deep doon i’ t’ moorland streams?
+It soonds like childer’ voices
+    When they’re laughin’ i’ their dreams.
+An’ look at yon lang-tailed pyots,[2]
+    There s three on ’em, I’ll uphod!
+Folks say that three’s for a weddin’,
+    Ay, a pyot’s a canny bod.
+        A weddin’, a woo,
+        A clog an’ a shoe,
+A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!
+
+I love to feel thee clingin’
+    Wi’ thy hands aroond my breast;
+Thy bosom’s leetly heavin’,
+    Like a ship on t’ saut waves’ crest.
+An’ thy breath is sweet as t’ breezes,
+    That cooms ower t’ soothern hills,
+When t’ violet blaws i’ t’ springtime
+    Wi’ t’ yollow daffydills.
+        A weddin’, a woo,
+        A clog an’ a shoe,
+A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!
+
+Is ta gittin’ tired, my honey,
+    We’ll be heame i’ hafe an hour;
+Thoo’ll see our hoose an’ staggarth,
+    Wi’ t’ birk-trees bendin’ ower.
+There’s a lillilow[3] i’ our cham’er
+    To welcome my viewly bride ;
+An’ sean we’ll be theer oorsels, lass,
+    Liggin’ cosy side by side.
+        A weddin’, a woo,
+        A clog an’ a shoe,
+A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!
+
+ [1] Stumble.
+
+ [2] Magpies.
+
+ [3] Light.
+
+
+
+
+The Artist
+
+
+Lang-haired gauvies[1] coom my way, drawin’ t’ owd abbey an’ brig,
+    All their crack is o’ Art-staities an’ picturs an’ paints;
+Want to put me on their canvas, donned i’ my farmer’s rig,
+    Tell me I’m pairt o’ t’ scenery, stained-glass windeys an’ saints.
+
+I reckon I’m artist an’ all, though I niver gave it a thowt;
+    Breeder o’ stock is my trade, Mike Pullan o’ t’ Abbey Close.
+What sud a farmer want wi’ picturs that brass has bowt?
+    All his art is i’ t’ mistal, wheer t’ heifers are ranged i’ rows.
+
+Look at yon pedigree bull, wi’ an eye as breet as a star,
+    An’ a coat that shines like velvet, when it catches t’ glent o’ t’
+    sun;
+Hark to him bealin’ for t’ cows, wi’ a voice like t’ thunner on t’
+scar,
+    Watch them sinews i’ t’ neck, ripplin’ wi’ mischief an’ fun.
+
+Three generations o’ men have lived their lives for yon bull,
+    Tewed at his keep all t’ day, dreamed o’ his sleekness all t’ neet;
+Moulded the bugth o’ his buttocks, fashioned the breadth o’ his skull—
+    Ivery one on ’em artists, sculptors o’ butcher’s meat.
+
+What are your Rubens and Vandykes anent the craft that is Breed?
+    Anent the art that is Life, what’s figures o’ bronze or stone?
+Us farmers ’ll mould you models, better nor statties that’s deead—
+    Strength that is wick i’ the flesh, Beauty that’s bred i’ the bone.
+
+Bailiff’s doughter at t’ Hollins, shoo’s Breed, an’ shoo’s Life, an
+shoo’s Art,
+    Bred frae a Westmorland statesman out o’ a Craven lass;
+Carries hersen like a queen when shoo drives to markit i’ t’ cart:
+    Noan o’ yon scraumy-legged[2] painters sal iver git howd o’ her
+    brass.
+
+Picturs is reight enough for fowks cluttered up i’ Leeds,
+    Fowks that have ne’er hannled beasts, can’t tell a tup frae a yowe
+    ;
+But the art for coontry lads is the art that breathes an’ feeds,
+    An’ t’ finest gallery i’ t’ worrld is a Yorkshire cattle-show.
+
+ [1] Simpletons.
+
+ [2] Spindle-legged.
+
+
+
+
+Marra to Bonney
+
+
+What would you do wi’ a doughter—
+    Pray wi’ her, bensil[1] her, flout her?—
+Say, what would you do wi’ a daughter
+    That’s marra to Bonney[2] hissen?
+
+I prayed wi’ her first, of a Sunday,
+    When chapil was lowsin’ for t’ neet;
+An’ I laid all her cockaloft marlocks[3]
+    ’Fore th’ Almighty’s mercy-seat.
+When I looked for her tears o’ repentance,
+    I jaloused[4] that I saw her laugh;
+An’ she said that t’ Powers o’ Justice
+    Would scatter my words like chaff.
+
+Then I bensilled her hard in her cham’er,
+    As I bensils owd Neddy i’ t’ cart.
+If prayers willent teach thee, my dolly,
+    Happen whip-stock will mak thy tears start.
+But she stood there as chuff as a mawmet,[5]
+    Not one chunt’rin[6] word did she say:
+But she hoped that t’ blooid o’ t’ martyrs
+    Would waish all my sins away.
+
+Then I thought, mebbe floutin’ will mend her;
+    So I watched while she cam out o’ t’ mill,
+And afore all yon Wyke lads an’ lasses
+    I fleered at her reight up our hill.
+She winced when she heeard all their girnin’,
+    Then she whispered, a sob i’ her throat:
+“I reckon I’ll noan think o’ weddin’
+    While women are given their vote.”
+
+What would you do wi’ a doughter—
+    Pray wi’ her, bensil her, flout her?—
+Say, what would you do wi’ a daughter
+    That’s marra to Bonney hissen?
+
+ [1] Beat.
+
+ [2] A match for Bonaparte.
+
+ [3] Conceited tricks.
+
+ [4] Suspected.
+
+ [5] As proud as an idol.
+
+ [6] Grumbling.
+
+
+
+
+Mary Mecca
+
+
+Mary Mecca,[1] Mary Mecca,
+    I’m fain to see thee here,
+A Devon lass to fill my glass
+    O’ home-brewed Yorkshire beer.
+I awlus said that foreigners
+    Sud niver mel on me;
+But sike a viewly face as thine
+    I’d travel far to see.
+
+Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,
+    I’m sad to see thee here,
+Wheer t’ wind blaws hask[2] frae Norway
+    I’ t’ spring-time o’ the year.
+I’d liever finnd thee sittin’,
+    Wi’ a bowl o’ cruds an’ cream,
+Wheer t’ foxglove bells ring through the dells,
+    Anent a Dartmoor stream.
+
+Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,
+    The way thou snods thy hair,
+It maks my heart go dancin’
+    Like winnlestraws[3] i’ t’ air.
+One neet I heard thee singin’,
+    As I cam home frae toon;
+’Twas sweet as curlews makkin’ love
+    Agean a risin’ moon.
+
+Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,
+    I dream o’ thy gray een;
+I think on all I’ve wasted,
+    An’ what I might hae been.
+I’m nowt but muck off t’ midden,
+    So all I axe is this:
+Just blaw the froth from off my yal[4];
+    ’Twill seem most like a kiss.
+
+ [1] Metcalfe.
+
+ [2] Keenly.
+
+ [3] Whisps of grass or straw.
+
+ [4] Ale.
+
+
+
+
+The Local Preacher
+
+
+Ay, I’m a ranter, so at least fowks say;
+    Happen they’d tell t’ same tale o’ t’ postle Paul.
+I’ve ranted fifty yeer, coom first o’ May,
+    An’ niver changed my gospil through ’em all.
+
+There’s nowt like t’ Blooid o’ t’ Lamb an’ t’ Fire o’ Hell
+    To bring a hardened taistril[1] to his knees;
+If fowks want more nor that, then thou can tell
+    ’Em straight, I’ve got no cure for their disease.
+
+I willent thole this New Theology
+    That blends up Hell wi’ Heaven, sinners wi’ saints
+For black was black when I turned Methody,
+    An’ white was white, i’ souls as weel as paints.
+
+That’s awlus t’ warp an’ t’ weft o’ my discourse,
+    An’ awlus will be, lang as I can teach;
+If fowks won’t harken tul it, then, of course,
+    They go to church and hear t’ owd parson preach.
+
+His sarmon’s like his baccy, sweet an’ mild;
+    Fowk’s ommost hauf asleep at t’ second word.
+By t’ Mass! they’re wick as lops,[2] ay, man an’ child,
+    When I stan’ up an’ wrastle wi’ the Lord.
+
+Nay, I’m not blamin’ parson, I’ll awant[3];
+    Preachin’s his trade, same way as millin’s mine.
+I’ trade you’ve got to gie fowks what they want,
+    An’ that is mostly sawcum[4] meshed reet fine.
+
+Tak squire theer; he don’t want no talk o’ Hell,
+    He likes to hark to t’ parable o’ t’ teares ;
+He reckons church is wheat that’s gooid to sell,
+    But chapil’s nobbut kexes,[5] thorns, an’ brears.
+
+Squire’s lasses, they can’t do wi’ t’ Blooid o’ t’ Lamb
+    They’re all for t’ blooid o’ t’ foxes, like our Bob.
+The Lord Hissen will have to save or damn
+    Church fowks wid out me mellin’ on[6] His job.
+
+But gie me chapil lasses gone astray,
+    Or lads that cooms home druffen of a neet,
+An’ I’ll raise Cain afore I go away,
+    If I don’t gie ’em t’ glent o’ t’ Gospil leet.
+
+I’ll mak ’em sit on t’ penitential stooils,
+    An’ roar as loud as t’ buzzer down at t’ mill;
+I’ll mak ’em own that they’ve bin despert fooils,
+    Wi’ all their pride o’ life a bitter pill.
+
+I’ve mony texts, but all to one point keep,
+    Same as all t’ becks flow down to one saut sea:
+Damnation an’ salvation, goats an’ sheep—
+    That’s t’ Bible gospil that thou’ll get thro’ me.
+
+ [1] Reprobate.
+
+ [2] Lively as fleas.
+
+ [3] Warrrant.
+
+ [4] Sawdust.
+
+ [5] Dried stems of weeds.
+
+ [6] Meddling with.
+
+
+
+
+The Courting Gate
+
+
+There’s dew upon the meadows,
+    An’ bats are wheelin’ high;
+The sun has set an hour sin’,
+    An’ evenin’ leet’s i’ t’ sky.
+Swalows i’ t’ thack are sleepin ,
+    Neet-hawks are swift on t’ wing,
+An’ grey moths gethers honey
+    Amang the purple ling .
+        O coom an’ meet me, Mally,
+        O coom an’ greet me, Mally,
+    Meet me, greet me, at the courtin’ gate.
+
+The fire-leet casts thy shadow
+    Owerthwart the kitchen wall;
+It’s dancin’ up an’ doon, lass,
+    My heart does dance an’ all.
+Three times I’ve gien oor love-call
+    To bring my bird to t’ nest.
+When wilt a coom, my throstle,
+    An’ shelter on my breast?
+        O coom an’ meet me, Mally,
+        O coom an’ greet me, Mally,
+    Meet me, greet me, at the courtin’ gate.
+
+I’ve wrowt all t’ day at t’ harvist,
+    But ivery hour seemed sweet,
+Acause I thowt I’d haud thee
+    Clasped i’ my airms to-neet.
+Black Bess she raked aside me
+    An’ leuked at me an’ smiled;
+I telled her I loved Mally,
+    It made her despert wild.
+        O coom an’ meet me, Mally,
+        O coom an’ greet me, Mally,
+    Meet me, greet me, at the courtin’ gate.
+
+Thy shadow’s gone frae t’ kitchen,
+    T’ hoose-door is oppened wide.
+It’s she, my viewly Mally,
+    The lass I’ll mak my bride.
+White lilies in her garden,
+    Fling oot your scent i’ t’ air,
+An’ mingle breath wi’ t’ roses
+    I’ve gethered for her hair.
+        O let me haud thee, Mally,
+        O let me faud thee, Mally,
+    Haud thee, faud thee, at the courtin’ gate.
+
+
+
+
+Fieldfares
+
+
+Fieldfares, bonny fieldfares, feedin’ ’mang the bent,
+Wheer the sun is shinin’ through yon cloud’s wide rent,
+        Welcoom back to t’ moorlands,
+        Frae Norway’s fells an’ shorelands,
+Welcoom back to Whardill,[1] now October’s ommost spent.
+
+Noisy, chackin’ fieldfares, weel I ken your cry,
+When i’ flocks you’re sweepin’ ower the hills sae high:
+        Oft on trees you gethers,
+        Preenin’ out your feathers,
+An’ I’m fain to see your coats as blue as t’ summer sky.
+
+Curlews, larks an’ tewits,[2] all have gone frae t’ moors,
+Frost has nipped i’ t’ garden all my bonny floors;
+        Roses, lilies, pansies,
+        Stocks an’ yallow tansies
+Fade away, an’ soon the leaves ’ll clutter[3] doon i’ shoors.
+
+Here i’ bed I’m liggin’, liggin’ day by day
+Hay-cart whemmled ower,[4] and underneath I lay;
+        I was nobbut seven,
+        Soon I’ll be eleven;
+Fower times have I seen you fieldfares coom an’ flee away.
+
+You’ll be gone when t’ swallow bigs his nest o’ loam,
+April winds ’ll blaw you far ower t’ saut sea foam;
+        You’ll not wait while May-time,
+        Summer dews an’ hay-time;
+Lang afore our gerse is mawn your mates ’ll call you home.
+
+Fieldfares, liltin’[5] fieldfares, you’ll noan sing to me.
+Why sud you bide silent while you’ve crossed the sea?
+        Are you brokken-hearted,
+        Sin frae home you’ve parted,
+Leavin’ far frae Yorkshire moors your nests i’ t’ tall fir tree?
+
+Storm-cock sings at new-yeer, swingin’ on yon esh,
+Sings his loudest song when t’ winds do beat an’ lesh;
+        Robins, throstles follow,
+        An’ when cooms the swalloww,
+All the birds ’ll chirm to see our woodlands green an’ nesh.
+
+Fieldfares, bonny fieldfares, I’ll be gone ’fore you;
+        I’m sae weak an’ dowly, hands are thin an’ blue.
+        Pain is growin’ stranger,
+As the neets get langer.
+Will you miss my face at whiles, when t’ owd yeer’s changed to t’ new?
+
+ [1] Wharfdale.
+
+ [2] Peewits.
+
+ [3] Huddle.
+
+ [4] Upset.
+
+ [5] Light-hearted.
+
+
+
+
+A Song of the Yorkshire Dales
+
+
+A song I sing o’ t’ Yorkshire dales,
+    That Winnd frae t’ moors to t’ sea;
+Frae t’ breast o’ t’ fells, wheer t’ cloud-rack sails,
+    Their becks flow merrily.
+Their banks are breet wi’ moss an’ broom,
+    An’ sweet is t’ scent o’ t’ thyme;
+You can hark to t’ bees’ saft, dreamy soom[1]
+    I’ t’ foxglove bells an’ t’ lime.
+
+Chorus
+
+O! Swawdill’s good for horses, an’ Wensladill for cheese,
+    An’ Airedill fowk are busy as a bee;
+            But wheersoe’er I wander,
+            My owd heart aye grows fonder
+O Whardill, wheer I’ll lig me down an’ dee.
+
+Reet bonny are our dales i’ March,
+    When t’ curlews tak to t’ moors,
+There’s ruddy buds on ivery larch,
+    Primroses don their floors.
+But bonnier yet when t’ August sun
+    Leets up yon plats o’ ling;
+An’ gert white fishes lowp an’ scun,[2]
+    Wheer t’ weirs ower t’ watter hing.
+
+O! Swawdillls good...
+
+By ivery beck an abbey sleeps,
+    An’ t’ ullet is t’ owd prior.
+A jackdaw thruf each windey peeps,
+    An’ bigs his nest i’ t’ choir.
+In ivery dale a castle stands—
+    Sing, Clifford, Percy, Scrope!—
+They threaped amang theirsels for t’ lands,
+    But fowt for t’ King or t’ Pope.
+
+O! Swawdill’s good...
+
+O! Eastward ho! is t’ song o’ t’ gales,
+    As they sweep ower fell an’ lea;
+And Eastward ho! is t’ song o’ t’ dales,
+    That winnd frae t’ moors to t’ sea.
+Coom winter frost, coom summer druft,
+    Their watters munnot bide;
+An’ t’ rain that’s fall’n when bould winds soughed
+    Sal iver seawards glide.
+
+O! Swawdill’ s good...
+
+ [1] Hum.
+
+ [2] Leap and dart away.
+
+
+
+
+The Flower of Wensleydale
+
+
+She leaned o’er her latticed casement,
+    The Flower of Wensleydale;
+’Twas St Agnes Eve at midnight,
+    Through the mist the stars burnt pale.
+
+In her hand she held twelve sage-leaves,
+    Plucked in her garden at noon;
+And over them she had whispered thrice
+    The spell of a mystic rune.
+
+For many had come a-wooing
+    The maid with the sloe-blue eyes;
+Fain would she learn of St Agnes
+    To whom should fall the prize.
+
+They said she must drop a sage-leaf
+    At each stroke of the midnight hour;
+Then should the knight of her father’s choice
+Obey the summons of her voice,
+    And appear ’neath her oriel’d bowwer.
+
+To the holy virgin-martyr
+    She lifted her hands in prayer;
+Then she watched the rooks that perched asleep
+    In the chestnut branches bare.
+
+At last on the frosty silence
+    There rang out the midnight chime;
+And the hills gave back in echoes
+    The knell of the dying time.
+
+She held her breath as she counted
+    The beats of the chapel bell;
+At every stroke of the hammer
+    A sage-leaf fluttered and fell,
+    Slowly fluttered and fell.
+
+Her heart stood still a moment,
+    As the last leaf touched the ground;
+And her hand went swift to her maiden breast,
+    For she heard a far-off sound;
+
+’Twas the sound of a horseman spurring
+    His steed through the woodland glade;
+And ever the sound drew nearer,
+And the footfalls echoed clearer,
+    Till before her bower they stayed.
+
+She strained her eyes to discover,
+    By the light of a ghostly moon,
+Who was the knight had heard and obeyed
+    The hest of the mystic rune.
+
+But naught could she see from her casement,
+    Save a man on a coal-black steed;
+For his mantle was muffled about him,
+    His blazon she could not read.
+
+She crossed herself and she whispered—
+    Her voice was faint but clear—
+“Oh! Who art thou that darest ride,
+Through the aspen glade, by the river’s side,
+    My chamber window near?
+
+“Say, art thou the lord of Bainbridge,
+    Or Gervase of Bolton Hall,
+That comest so late on St Agnes Eve
+    Within my manor wall?”
+
+“I am not the lord of Bainbridge,
+    Nor Gervase of Bolton Hall,
+But I marked the light in thy casement,
+    And I saw the sage-leaves fall,
+    Flutter awhile and fall.”
+
+“Camest thou over the moorlands,
+    Or camest thou through the dale?
+Speak no guile to a witless maid,
+    But tell me a soothfast tale.”
+
+“I came not over the moorlands,
+    Nor along the dale did ride;
+But thou seeest thy plighted lover,
+    That has come to claim his bride.”
+
+“Say, art thou knight or yeoman,
+    Of noble or simple birth?
+Fain would I know thy lineage,
+    Thy prowess and thy worth.”
+
+“Nor knight nor lowly yeoman,
+    But a mighty king am I;
+Bold vassals do my bidding,
+    And on mine errands hie.
+
+“They come to court and castle,
+    They climb the palace stairs;
+Nor pope nor king may entrance bar
+    To him my livery wears.”
+
+“But why should a king so mighty
+    Pay court to a simple maid?
+My father’s a knight of low degree,
+No princely realm he holds in fee,
+No proud-foot damsels wait on me:
+    Thy steps have surely strayed.”
+
+“No step of mine hath wandered
+    From the goal of my desires;
+’Tis on thee my hopes are centred,
+    ’Tis to thee my heart aspires.
+
+“I love thee for thy beauty,
+    I love thee for thy grace,
+I love thee for the dancing lights
+    That gleam in thy moon-lit face:
+And these I deem a peerless dower
+    To win a king’s embrace.”
+
+“One boon, O royal lover,
+    I ask on St Agnes Day;
+I fain would gaze on thy visage fair
+    Ere with thee I steal away.
+
+“Unmuffle thou the mantle
+    That hides thee like a pall;
+And let the purple trappings
+    From off thy shoulders fall.”
+
+Slowly he loosed the mantle,
+    And showed his face beneath.
+The lights went out in the maiden’s eyes;
+One swooning word she breathed to the skies:
+    The gaunt hills echoed “Death.”
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Ridings by F. W. Moorman
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+<pre>
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Ridings by F. W. Moorman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Songs of the Ridings
+
+Author: F. W. Moorman
+
+Release Date: April 2, 2001 [EBook #3232]
+[Most recently updated: November 16, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF THE RIDINGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dave Fawthrop
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h1>Songs of the Ridings</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by F. W. Moorman</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p class="center">
+I DEDICATE<br/>
+THIS VOLUME TO THE<br/>
+YORKSHIRE MEMBERS OF THE<br/>
+WORKERS&rsquo; EDUCATIONAL<br/>
+ASSOCIATION
+</p>
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#pref01">Preface</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">A Dalesman&rsquo;s Litany</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">Cambodunum</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">Telling the Bees</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">The Two Lamplighters</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">Our Beck</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">Lord George</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">Jenny Storm</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">The New Englishman</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">The Bells of Kirkby Overblow</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">The gardener and the Robin</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">Lile Doad</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">His last Sail</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">One Year older</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">The Hungry Forties</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">The Flowers of Knaresborough Forest</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">The Miller by the Shore</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">The Bride&rsquo;s Homecoming</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">The Artist</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">Marra to Bonney</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">Mary Mecca</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">The Local Preacher</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">The Courting Gate</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">Fieldfares</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">A Song of the Yorkshire Dales</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">The Flower of Wensleydale</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="pref01"></a>Preface</h2>
+
+<p>
+Abut two years ago I published a collection of Yorkshire dialect poems, chosen
+from many authors and extending over a period of two hundred and fifty
+years<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a>. The volume
+was well received, and there are abundant signs that the interest in dialect
+literature is steadily growing in all parts of the county and beyond its
+borders. What is most encouraging is to find that the book has found an
+entrance into the homes of Yorkshire peasants and artisans where the works of
+our great national poets are unknown. I now essay the more venturesome task of
+publishing dialect verses of my own. Most of the poems contained in this little
+volume have appeared, anonymously, in the Yorkshire press, and I have now
+decided to reissue them in book form and with my name on the title-page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A generation ago the minor poet was, in the eyes of most Englishmen, an object
+of ridicule. Dickens and Thackeray had done their worst with him: we knew
+him&mdash;or her&mdash;as Augustus Snodgrass or Blanche Amory&mdash;an amiable
+fool or an unamiable minx. The twentieth century has already, in its short
+course, done much to remove this prejudice, and the minor poet is no longer
+expected to be apologetic; his circle of readers, though small, is sympathetic,
+and the outside public is learning to tolerate him and to recognise that it is
+as natural and wholesome for him to write and publish his verses as it is for
+the minor painter to depict and exhibit in public his interpretation of the
+beauty and power which he sees in human life and in nature. All this is clear
+gain, and the time may not be far distant when England will again become what
+it was in Elizabethan days - a nest of singing birds, where te minor poets will
+be able to take their share in the chorus of song, leaving the chief parts in
+the oratorio to the Shakespeares and Spensers of tomorrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The twenty-five poems of which this volume consists are meant to serve a double
+purpose. Most of them are character-sketches or dramatic studies, and my wish
+is to bring before the notice of my readers the habits of mind of certain
+Yorkshire men and women whose acquaintance I have made. For ten years I have
+gone up hill and down dale in the three Ridings, intent on the study of the
+sounds, words and idioms of the local folk-speech. At first my object was
+purely philological, but soon I came to realise that men and women were more
+interesting than words and phrases, and my attention was attracted from dialect
+speech to dialect speakers. Among Yorkshire farmers, farm labourers, fishermen,
+miners and mill workers I discovered a vitality and an outlook upon life of
+which I, a bourgeois professor, had no previous knowledge. Not, only had I
+never met such men before, but I had not read about them in literature, or seen
+their portraits painted on canvas. The wish to give a literary interpretation
+of the world into which I had been privileged to enter grew every day more
+insistent, and this volume is the fulfilment of that wish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of all forms of literature, whether in Verse or prose, the dramatic monologue
+seemed to me the aptest for the exposition of character and habits of mind. It
+is the creation&mdash;or recreation&mdash;of Robert Browning, the most
+illuminating interpreter of the workings of the human mind that England has
+produced since Shakespeare died. My first endeavour was therefore
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+to watch<br/>
+The Master work, and catch<br/>
+Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool&rsquo;s true play.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+I have been, I fear, a clumsy botcher in applying the lessons that Browning was
+able to teach, but the dramatic monologues of which this volume is largely
+composed owe whatever art they may possess to his example. My dramatic studies
+are drawn from life. For example, the local preacher who expresses his views on
+the rival merits of Church and Chapel is a Wharfedale acquaintance, and the
+farmer in <i>Cambodunum</i> who declares that &ldquo;eddication&rsquo;s nowt
+but muckment&rdquo; actually expressed this view to a Chief Inspector of
+Schools, a member of the West Riding Education Committee, and myself, when we
+visited him on his farm. I do not claim that I have furnished literal
+transcripts of what I heard in my conversations with my heroes and heroines,
+but my purpose throughout has been to hold a mirror up to Nature, to give a
+faithful interpretation of thought and character, and to show my readers some
+of the ply of mind and habits of life that still prevail among Yorkshiremen
+whose individuality has not been blunted by convention and who have the courage
+to express their reasoned or instinctive views of life and society.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the interpretation of the minds of Yorkshire peasants and artisans for the
+benefit of the so-called general reader is only the secondary object which I
+have in view. My primary appeal is not to those who have the full chorus of
+English song, from Chaucer to Masefield, at their beck and call, but to a still
+larger class of men and women who are not general readers of literature at all,
+and for whom most English poetry is a closed book. In my dialect wanderings
+through Yorkshire I discovered that while there was a hunger for poetry in the
+hearts of the people, the great masterpieces of our national song made little
+or no appeal to them. They were bidden to a feast of rarest quality and
+profusion, but it consisted of food that they could not assimilate. Spenser,
+Milton, Pope, Keats, Tennyson, all spoke to them in a language which they could
+not understand, and presented to them a world of thought and life in which they
+had no inheritance. But the Yorkshire dialect verse which circulated through
+the dales in chap-book or Christmas almanac was welcomed everywhere. Two
+memories come before my mind as I write. One is that of a North Riding farm
+labourer who knew by heart many of the dialect poems of the Eskdale poet, John
+Castillo, and was in the habit of reciting them to himself as he followed the
+plough. The other is that of a blind girl in a West Riding village who had
+committed to memory scores of the poems of John Hartley, and, gathering her
+neighbours round her kitchen fire of a winter evening, regaled them with
+<i>Bite Bigger</i>, <i>Nelly o&rsquo; Bob&rsquo;s</i> and other verses of the
+Halifax poet. My object is to add something to this chorus of local song. It
+was the aim of Addison in his <i>Spectator</i> essays to bring
+&ldquo;philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell
+in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffeehouses&rdquo;; and, in like
+manner, it should be the aim of the writer of dialect verse to bring poetry out
+of the coteries of the people of leisure and to make it dwell in
+artisans&rsquo; tenements and in cottagers&rsquo; kitchens.
+&ldquo;Poetry,&rdquo; declared Shelley, &ldquo;is the record of the best and
+happiest moments of the happiest and best minds,&rdquo; and it is time that the
+working men and women of England were made partakers in this inheritance of
+wealth and joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It maybe argued that it should be the aim of our schools and universities to
+educate the working classes to appreciate what is best in standard English
+poetry. I do not deny that much maybe done in this way, but let us not forget
+that something more will be needed than a course of instruction in poetic
+diction and metrical rhythm. Our great poets depict a world which is only to a
+very small extent that of the working man. It is a world of courts and
+drawingrooms and General Headquarters, a world of clubs and academies. The
+working man or woman finds a place in this charmed world only if his occupation
+is that of a shepherd, and even then he must be a shepherd of the Golden Age
+and answer to the name of Corydon. Poets, we are solemnly assured by Pope, must
+not describe shepherds as they really are, &ldquo;but as they may be conceived
+to have been when the best of men followed the employment of shepherd.&rdquo;
+Class-consciousness&mdash;a word often on the lips of our democratic leaders of
+today&mdash;has held far too much sway over the minds of poets from the
+Elizabethan age onwards. Spenser writes his <i>Faerie Queene</i> &ldquo;to
+fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline,&rdquo;
+and Milton&rsquo;s audience, fit but few, is composed of scholars whose ears
+have been attuned to the harmonies of epic verse from their first lisping of
+Virgilian hexameters, or of latter-day Puritans, like John Bright, who overhear
+in <i>Paradise Lost</i> the echoes of a faith that once was stalwart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what, it may be asked, of Crabbe, and what of Wordsworth? The former by his
+own confession, paints
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+the cot,<br/>
+As truth will paint it and as bards will not;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+but as we listen to his verse tales we can never forget that it is the Rev.
+George Crabbe who is instructing us, or that his pedestal is the topmost story
+of his three-decker pulpit at Aldborough. Wordsworth&rsquo;s sympathy with the
+lives of the Cumberland peasantry is profound, and the time is surely not
+distant when such a poem as &lsquo;Michael&rsquo; will win a place in the
+hearts of working men; but it is to be feared that in his own generation
+&ldquo;Mr Wudsworth&rdquo; served rather&mdash;as a warning than an
+encouragement to his peasant neighbours. &ldquo;Many&rsquo;s the time,&rdquo;
+an old Cumberland innkeeper told Canon Rawnsley, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seed him
+a-takin&rsquo; his family out in a string, and niver geein&rsquo; the deariest
+bit of notice to &rsquo;em; standin&rsquo; by hissel&rsquo; an&rsquo;
+stoppin&rsquo; behind a-gapin&rsquo;, wi&rsquo; his jaws workin&rsquo; the
+whoal time; but niver no crackin&rsquo; wi&rsquo; &rsquo;em, nor no pleasure in
+&rsquo;em&mdash;a desolate-minded man, ye kna... It was potry as did
+it.&rdquo;<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our English non-dramatic poetry from the Renaissance onwards is second to none
+in richness of thought and beauty of diction, but it lacks the highest quality
+of all&mdash;universality of interest and appeal. Our poets have turned a cold
+shoulder to the activities and aims of the working man, and the working man
+has, in consequence, turned a cold shoulder to the great English classic poets.
+The loss on either side has been great, though it is only now beginning to be
+realised. &ldquo;A literature which leaves large areas of the national activity
+and aspiration unexpressed is in danger of becoming narrow, esoteric,
+unhealthy. Areas of activity and aspiration unlit by the cleansing sun of art,
+untended by the loving consideration of the poet, will be dungeons for the
+national spirit, mildewed cellars in which rats fight, misers hoard their gold,
+and Guy Fawkes lays his train to blow the superstructure
+sky-high.&rdquo;<a href="#fn-3" name="fnref-3" id="fnref-3"><sup>[3]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a time when poetry meant much more to the working men of England. In
+the later Middle Ages, above all in that fifteenth century which literary
+historians are fond of describing as the darkest period in English literature,
+the working man had won for himself what seemed a secure place in poetry.
+Narrative, lyric and dramatic poetry had all opened their portals to him, and
+made his life and aims their theme. Side by side with the courtly verse
+romances, which were read in the bowers of highborn ladies, were the terse and
+popular ballads, which were chanted by minstrels, wandering from town to town
+and from village to village. Among the heroes of these ballads we find that
+&ldquo;wight yeoman,&rdquo; Robin Hood, who wages war against mediaeval
+capitalism, as embodied in the persons of the abbot-landholders, and against
+the class legislation of Norman game laws which is enforced by the King&rsquo;s
+sheriff. The lyric poetry of the century is not the courtly Troubadour song or
+the Petrarchian sonnet, but the folk-song that sings from the heart to the
+heart of the beauty of Alysoun, &ldquo;seemliest of all things,&rdquo; or, in
+more convivial mood, accounts good ale of more worth than a table set with many
+dishes:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Bring us in no capon&rsquo;s flesh, for that is often dear,<br/>
+Nor bring us in no duck&rsquo;s flesh, for they slobber in the mere,<br/>
+But bring us in good ale!<br/>
+Bring us in good ale, and bring us in good ale;<br/>
+For our blessed Lady sake bring us in good ale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Most remarkable of all is the history of the drama in the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries. The drama was clerical and not popular in its origin, and
+when, in course of time, it passed out of the hands of the clergy it is natural
+to suppose that it would find a new home at the King&rsquo;s court or the
+baron&rsquo;s castle. It did nothing of the kind. It passed from the Church to
+the people, and it was the artisan craftsmen of the English towns, organised in
+their trade-guilds, to whom we owe the great cycles of our miracle plays. The
+authors of these plays were restricted to Bible story for their themes, but the
+popular character of their work is everywhere apparent in the manner in which
+the material is handled and the characters conceived. The Noah of the Deluge
+plays is an English master joiner with a shrewish wife, and three sons who are
+his apprentices. When the divine command to build an ark comes to him, he sets
+to work with an energy that drives away &ldquo;the weariness of five hundred
+winters&rdquo; and, &ldquo;ligging on his line,&rdquo; measures his planks,
+&ldquo;clenches them with noble new nails&rdquo;, and takes a craftsman&rsquo;s
+delight in the finished work:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+This work I warant both good and true.<a href="#fn-4" name="fnref-4" id="fnref-4"><sup>[4]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In like manner, the Shepherds of the Nativity plays are conceived and fashioned
+by men who, fortunate in that they knew nothing of the seductions of Arcadian
+pastoralism, have studied at first hand the habits and thoughts of English
+fifteenth-century shepherds, and paint these to the life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus, at the close of the Middle Ages, narrative, lyric and dramatic poetry
+seemed firmly established among the people. Not unmindful of romance, it was
+grounded in realism and sought to interpret the life of the peasant and the
+artisan of fifteenth-century England. The Renaissance follows, and a profound
+change comes over poetry. The popular note grows fainter and fainter, till at
+last it becomes inaudible. Poetry leaves the farmyard and the craftsman&rsquo;s
+bench for the court. The folk-song, fashioned in to a thing of wondrous beauty
+by the creator of Amiens, Feste and Autolycus, is driven from the stage by Ben
+Jonson, and its place is taken by a lyric of classic extraction. The popular
+drama, ennobled and made shapely through contact with Latin drama, passes from
+the provincial market-place to Bankside, and the rude mechanicals of the
+trade-guilds yield place to the Lord Chamberlain&rsquo;s players. In the dramas
+of Shakespeare the popular note is still audible, but only as an undertone,
+furnishing comic relief to the romantic amours of courtly lovers or the tragic
+fall of Princes; with Beaumont and Fletcher, and still more with Dryden and the
+Restoration dramatists, the popular element in the drama passes away, and the
+triumph of the court is complete. The Elizabethan court could find no use for
+the popular ballad, but, like other forms of literature, it was attracted from
+the country-side to the city. Forgetful of the greenwood, it now battened on
+the garbage of Newgate, and <i>Robin Hood and Guy of Gisburn</i> yields place
+to <i>The Wofull Lamentation of William Purchas, who for murthering his Mother
+at Thaxted, was executed at Chelmsford</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We are justly proud of the Renaissance and of the glories of our Elizabethan
+literature, but let us frankly own that in the annals of poetry there was loss
+as well as gain. The gain was for the courtier and the scholar, and for all
+those who, in the centuries that followed the Renaissance, have been able, by
+means of education, to enter into the courtier&rsquo;s and scholar&rsquo;s
+inheritance. The loss has been for the people. The opposition between courtly
+taste and popular taste is hard to analyse, but we have only to turn our eyes
+from England to Scotland, which lost its royal court in 1603, in order to
+appreciate the reality of the opposition. In Scotland the courtly poetry of the
+fifteenth and sixteenth centuries soon disappeared when James I exchanged
+Holyrood for Whitehall, but popular poetry continued to live and grow. The
+folk-song gathered power and sweetness all through the seventeenth and
+eighteenth centuries, till it culminated at last in the lyric of Burns. Popular
+drama, never firmly rooted in Scotland, was stamped out by the Reformation, but
+the popular ballad outlived the mediaeval minstrel, was kept alive in the homes
+of Lowland farmers and shepherds, and called into being the great ballad
+revival of the nineteenth century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is idle to speculate what would have been the progress of poetry in England
+if the Renaissance had not come and the Elizabethan courtier had not enriched
+himself at the expense of the people. What we have to bear in mind is that all
+through the centuries that followed the Renaissance the working men and women
+of England looked almost in vain to their poets for a faithful interpretation
+of their life and aims. The wonder is that the instinct for poetry did not
+perish in their hearts for lack of sustenance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are at the present time clear signs of a revival of popular poetry and
+popular drama. The verse tales of Masefield and Gibson, the lyrics of Patrick
+MacGill, the peasant or artisan plays which have been produced at the Abbey
+Theatre, Dublin, and the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, may well be the beginning
+of a great democratic literary movement. Democracy, in its striving after a
+richer and fuller life for the people of England, is at last turning its
+attention to literature and art. It is slowly realising two great truths. The
+first is that literature may be used as a mighty weapon in the furtherance of
+political justice and social reform, and that the pied pipers of folk-song have
+the power to rouse the nation and charm the ears of even the Mother of
+Parliaments. The second is that the working man needs something more to sustain
+him than bread and the franchise and a fair day&rsquo;s wage for a fair
+day&rsquo;s work. Democracy, having obtained for the working man a place in the
+government of the nation, is now asserting his claim to a place in the temples
+of poetry. The Arthurian knight, the Renaissance courtier, the scholar and the
+wit must admit the twentieth-century artisan to their circle. Piers the
+ploughman must once more become the hero of song, and Saul Kane, the poacher,
+must find a place, alongside of Tiresias and Merlin, among the seers and
+mystics. Let democracy look to William Morris, poet, artist and social
+democrat, for inspiration and guidance, and take to heart the message of
+prophecy which he has left us: &ldquo;If art, which is now sick, is to live and
+not die, it must in the future be of the people, for the people, by the
+people.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the creation of this poetry &ldquo;of the people, by the people&rdquo;
+dialect may well be called upon to play a part. Dialect is of the people,
+though in a varying degree in the different parts of the wide areas of the
+globe where the English language is spoken; it possesses, moreover, qualities,
+and is fraught with associations, which are of the utmost value to the poet and
+to which the standard speech can lay no claim. It may be that for some of the
+more elaborate kinds of poetry, such as the formal epic, dialect is useless;
+let it be reserved, therefore, for those kinds which appeal most directly to
+the hearts of the people. The poetry of the people includes the ballad and the
+verse tale, lyric in all its forms, and some kinds of satire; and for all these
+dialect is a fitting instrument. It possesses in the highest degree directness
+of utterance and racy vigour. How much of their force would the &ldquo;Biglow
+Papers&rdquo; of J. R. Lowell lose if they were transcribed from the Yankee
+dialect into standard English!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the highest quality of dialect speech, and that which renders it
+pre-eminently fitted for poetic use, is its intimate association with all that
+lies nearest to the heart of the working man. It is the language of his hearth
+and home; many of the most cherished memories of his life are bound up with it;
+it is for him the language of freedom, whereas standard English is that of
+constraint. In other words, dialect is the working man&rsquo;s poetic
+diction&mdash;a poetic diction as full of savour as that of the
+eighteenth-century poets was flat and insipid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is sometimes said that the use of dialect makes the appeal of poetry
+provincial instead of national or universal. This is only true when the dialect
+poet is a pedant and obscures his meaning by fantastic spellings. The Lowland
+Scots element in <i>Auld Lang Syne</i> has not prevented it from becoming the
+song of friendship of the Anglo-Saxon race all the world over. Moreover, the
+provincial note in poetry or prose is far from being a bad thing. In the
+<i>Idylls</i> of Theocritus it gave new life to Greek poetry in the third
+century before Christ, and it may render the same high service to English
+poetry to-day or to-morow. The rise of Provincial schools of literature,
+interpreting local life in local idiom, in all parts of the British Isles and
+in the Britain beyond the seas, is a goal worth striving for; such a
+literature, so far from impeding the progress of the literature in the standard
+tongue, would serve only to enrich it in spirit, substance and form.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a>
+<i>Yorkshire Dialect Poems</i>, 1673-1915 (Sedgwick and Jackson 1916)
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a>
+<i>Reminiscences.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-3" id="fn-3"></a> <a href="#fnref-3">[3]</a>
+J. Dover Wilson, Writing in the <i>Athenæum</i> under the pseudonym
+&ldquo;Muezzin,&rdquo; February, 1917. The quotation is from one of four
+articles, entitled &ldquo;Prospects in English Literature,&rdquo; to which the
+ideas set forth in this Preface owe much.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-4" id="fn-4"></a> <a href="#fnref-4">[4]</a>
+&ldquo;York Plays&rdquo;: <i>The Building of the Ark</i>.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>A Dalesman&rsquo;s Litany</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+From Hull, Halifax, and Hell, good Lord deliver us.<br/>
+                                        <i>A Yorkshire Proverb</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+It&rsquo;s hard when fowks can&rsquo;t finnd their wark<br/>
+    Wheer they&rsquo;ve bin bred an&rsquo; born;<br/>
+When I were young I awlus thowt<br/>
+    I&rsquo;d bide &rsquo;mong t&rsquo; roots an&rsquo; corn.<br/>
+But I&rsquo;ve bin forced to work i&rsquo; towns,<br/>
+    So here&rsquo;s my litany:<br/>
+Frae Hull, an&rsquo; Halifax, an&rsquo; Hell,<br/>
+    Gooid Lord, deliver me!<br/>
+<br/>
+When I were courtin&rsquo; Mary Ann,<br/>
+    T&rsquo; owd squire, he says one day:<br/>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got no bield<a href="#fn-5" name="fnref-5" id="fnref-5"><sup>[1]</sup></a> for wedded fowks;<br/>
+    Choose, wilt ta wed or stay?&rdquo;<br/>
+I couldn&rsquo;t gie up t&rsquo; lass I loved,<br/>
+    To t&rsquo; town we had to flee:<br/>
+Frae Hull, an&rsquo; Halifax, an&rsquo; Hell,<br/>
+    Gooid Lord, deliver me!<br/>
+<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve wrowt i&rsquo; Leeds an&rsquo; Huthersfel&rsquo;,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; addled<a href="#fn-6" name="fnref-6" id="fnref-6"><sup>[2]</sup></a> honest brass;<br/>
+I&rsquo; Bradforth, Keighley, Rotherham,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ve kept my barns an&rsquo; lass.<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve travelled all three Ridin&rsquo;s round,<br/>
+    And once I went to sea:<br/>
+Frae forges, mills, an&rsquo; coalin&rsquo; boats,<br/>
+    Gooid Lord, deliver me!<br/>
+<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve walked at neet through Sheffield loans,<a href="#fn-7" name="fnref-7" id="fnref-7"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/>
+    &rsquo;T were same as bein&rsquo; i&rsquo; Hell:<br/>
+Furnaces thrast out tongues o&rsquo; fire,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; roared like t&rsquo; wind on t&rsquo; fell.<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve sammed up coals i&rsquo; Barnsley pits,<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; muck up to my knee:<br/>
+Frae Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham,<br/>
+    Gooid Lord, deliver me!<br/>
+<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve seen grey fog creep ower Leeds Brig<br/>
+    As thick as bastile<a href="#fn-8" name="fnref-8" id="fnref-8"><sup>[4]</sup></a> soup;<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve lived wheer fowks were stowed away<br/>
+    Like rabbits in a coop.<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve watched snow float down Bradforth Beck<br/>
+    As black as ebiny:<br/>
+Frae Hunslet, Holbeck, Wibsey Slack,<br/>
+    Gooid Lord, deliver me!<br/>
+<br/>
+But now, when all wer childer&rsquo;s fligged,<a href="#fn-9" name="fnref-9" id="fnref-9"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/>
+    To t&rsquo; coontry we&rsquo;ve coom back.<br/>
+There&rsquo;s fotty mile o&rsquo; heathery moor<br/>
+    Twix&rsquo; us an&rsquo; t&rsquo; coal-pit slack.<br/>
+And when I sit ower t&rsquo; fire at neet,<br/>
+    I laugh an&rsquo; shout wi&rsquo; glee:<br/>
+Frae Bradforth, Leeds, an Huthersfel&rsquo;,<br/>
+Frae Hull, an&rsquo; Halifax, an&rsquo; Hell,<br/>
+    T&rsquo; gooid Lord&rsquo;s delivered me!
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-5" id="fn-5"></a> <a href="#fnref-5">[1]</a>
+Shelter.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-6" id="fn-6"></a> <a href="#fnref-6">[2]</a>
+Earned.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-7" id="fn-7"></a> <a href="#fnref-7">[3]</a>
+Lanes.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-8" id="fn-8"></a> <a href="#fnref-8">[4]</a>
+Workhouse.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-9" id="fn-9"></a> <a href="#fnref-9">[5]</a>
+Fledged.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>Cambodunum</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+Cambodunum is the name of a Roman station, situated on a farm at Slack, on the
+hills above Huddersfield.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Cambodunum, Cambodunum,<br/>
+    how I love the sound o&rsquo; t&rsquo; name!<br/>
+Roman sowdiers belt a fort here,<br/>
+    gave th&rsquo; owd place its lastin&rsquo; fame.<br/>
+<br/>
+We&rsquo;ve bin lords o&rsquo; Cambodunum<br/>
+    for well-nigh eight hunderd yeer;<br/>
+Fowk say our fore-elders<br/>
+    bowt it of a Roman charioteer.<br/>
+<br/>
+Ay, I know we&rsquo;re nobbut farmers,<br/>
+    mowin&rsquo; gerse an&rsquo; tentin&rsquo; kye,<br/>
+But we&rsquo;re proud of all we&rsquo;ve stood for<br/>
+    i&rsquo; yon ages that&rsquo;s gone by;<br/>
+<br/>
+Proud of all the slacks we&rsquo;ve drained,<br/>
+    an&rsquo; proud of all the walls we&rsquo;ve belt,<br/>
+Proud to think we&rsquo;ve bred our childer<br/>
+    on the ground wheer Romans dwelt.<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Niver pairt wi&rsquo; Cambodunum,&rdquo;<br/>
+    that&rsquo;s what father used to say;<br/>
+&ldquo;If thou does, thou&rsquo;ll coom to ruin,<br/>
+    beg thy breead thro&rsquo; day to day.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+I&rsquo;ll noan pairt wi&rsquo; Cambodunum,<br/>
+    though its roof lets in the rains,<br/>
+An&rsquo; its walls wi&rsquo; age are totterin&rsquo;;<br/>
+    Cambodunum&rsquo;s i&rsquo; my veins.<br/>
+<br/>
+Ivery stone about the buildin&rsquo;<br/>
+    has bin dressed by Roman hands,<br/>
+An&rsquo; red blooid o&rsquo; Roman sowdiers<br/>
+    has bin temmed<a href="#fn-10" name="fnref-10" id="fnref-10"><sup>[1]</sup></a> out on its lands.<br/>
+<br/>
+Often, when I ploo i&rsquo; springtime,<br/>
+    I leet on their buried hoard&mdash;<br/>
+Coins an&rsquo; pottery, combs an&rsquo; glasses;<br/>
+    once I fan&rsquo; a rusty sword.<br/>
+<br/>
+Whisht! I&rsquo;ll tell thee what I saw here<br/>
+    of a moon-lit winter neet&mdash;<br/>
+Ghosts o&rsquo; Romans i&rsquo; their war-gear,<br/>
+    wheelin&rsquo; slow wi&rsquo; silent feet;<br/>
+<br/>
+Pale their faces, proud their bearin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    an&rsquo; a strange gloor i&rsquo; their een,<br/>
+As they marched past an&rsquo; saluted,<br/>
+    while th&rsquo; east wind blew snell an&rsquo; keen.<br/>
+<br/>
+Dalewards, dalewards, iver dalewards,<br/>
+    th&rsquo; hill-fowk wander yeer by yeer,<br/>
+An&rsquo; they toss their heeads an&rsquo; flout me,<br/>
+    when they see me bidin&rsquo; here.<br/>
+<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve one answer to their fleerin&rsquo;:<br/>
+    &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll noan be a fact&rsquo;ry slave,<br/>
+Breathin&rsquo; poison i&rsquo; yon wark-shops,<br/>
+    diggin&rsquo; ivery day my grave.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;You may addle brass i&rsquo; plenty,<br/>
+    you&rsquo;ll noan addle peace o&rsquo; mind;<br/>
+That sal bide amang us farmers<br/>
+    on th&rsquo; owd hills you&rsquo;ve left behind.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+See that place down theer i&rsquo; t&rsquo; valley,<br/>
+    wheer yon chimleys spit out smoke?<br/>
+Huthersfield is what they call it,<br/>
+    wheer fowk live like pigs i&rsquo; t&rsquo; poke;<br/>
+<br/>
+Wheer men grind their hearts to guineas,<br/>
+    an&rsquo; their mills are awlus thrang,<br/>
+Turnin&rsquo; neet-time into day-time,<br/>
+    niver stoppin&rsquo; th&rsquo; whole yeer lang.<br/>
+<br/>
+Cambodunum up on th&rsquo; hill-tops,<br/>
+    Huthersfield down i&rsquo; yon dale;<br/>
+One&rsquo;s a place for free-born Britons,<br/>
+    t&rsquo;other&rsquo;s ommost like a jail.<br/>
+<br/>
+Here we live i&rsquo; t&rsquo; leet an&rsquo; sunshine,<br/>
+    free as larks i&rsquo; t&rsquo; sky aboon;<br/>
+Theer men tew<a href="#fn-11" name="fnref-11" id="fnref-11"><sup>[2]</sup></a> like mowdiwarps<a href="#fn-12" name="fnref-12" id="fnref-12"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/>
+    that grub up muck by t&rsquo; glent o&rsquo; t&rsquo; moon.<br/>
+<br/>
+See yon motor whizzin&rsquo; past us,<br/>
+    ower th&rsquo; owd brig that spans our beck;<br/>
+That&rsquo;s what fowk call modern progress,<br/>
+    march o&rsquo; human intelleck.<br/>
+<br/>
+Modern progress, modern ruin!<br/>
+    March o&rsquo; int&rsquo;leck, march o&rsquo; fooils!<br/>
+All that cooms o&rsquo; larnin&rsquo; childer<br/>
+    i&rsquo; their colleges an&rsquo; schooils.<br/>
+<br/>
+Eddication! Sanitation!!&mdash;<br/>
+    teeming brass reight down a sink;<br/>
+Eddication&rsquo;s nowt but muckment,<br/>
+    sanitation&rsquo;s just a stink.<br/>
+<br/>
+Childer mun have books an&rsquo; picturs,<br/>
+    bowt at t&rsquo; most expensive shops,<br/>
+Teliscowps to go star-gazin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    michaelscowps to look at lops.<a href="#fn-13" name="fnref-13" id="fnref-13"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/>
+<br/>
+Farmers munnot put their midden<br/>
+    straight afoor their kitchen door;<br/>
+Once a week they&rsquo;re set spring-cleanin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    fettlin&rsquo; up their shippen<a href="#fn-14" name="fnref-14" id="fnref-14"><sup>[5]</sup></a> floor.<br/>
+<br/>
+Women-fowk have taen to knackin&rsquo;,<a href="#fn-15" name="fnref-15" id="fnref-15"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/>
+    wilent speyk their mother-tongue,<br/>
+Try to talk like chaps i&rsquo; t&rsquo; powpit,<br/>
+    chicken-chisted, wake i&rsquo; t&rsquo; lung.<br/>
+<br/>
+Some fowk say I&rsquo;m too owd-feshioned;<br/>
+    mebbe, they are tellin&rsquo; true:<br/>
+When you&rsquo;ve lived wi&rsquo; ghosts o&rsquo; Romans,<br/>
+    you&rsquo;ve no call for owt that&rsquo;s new.<br/>
+<br/>
+Weel I know I san&rsquo;t win t&rsquo; vict&rsquo;ry:<br/>
+    son&rsquo;s agean me, dowters, wife;<br/>
+Yit I&rsquo;ll hold my ground bout flinchin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    feight so long as I have life.<br/>
+<br/>
+An&rsquo; if t&rsquo; wick uns are agean me,<br/>
+    I sal feight for them that&rsquo;s deead&mdash;<br/>
+Roman sowdiers i&rsquo; their trenches,<br/>
+    lapped i&rsquo; mail thro&rsquo; foot to heead.<br/>
+<br/>
+Here I stand for Cambodunum,<br/>
+    eagle&rsquo;s nest on t&rsquo; Pennine hills,<br/>
+Wagin&rsquo; war wi&rsquo; modern notions,<br/>
+    carin&rsquo; nowt for forges, mills.<br/>
+<br/>
+Deeath alone sal call surrender,<br/>
+    stealin&rsquo; on me wi&rsquo; his hosts,<br/>
+And when Deeath has won his battle,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ll go seek my Roman ghosts.<br/>
+<br/>
+Then I&rsquo;ll hear their shout o&rsquo; welcome<br/>
+    &ldquo;Here cooms Bob &rsquo;o Dick &rsquo;o Joe&rsquo;s,<br/>
+Bred an&rsquo; born at Cambodunum,<br/>
+    held th&rsquo;owd fort agean his foes;<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Fowt for ancient ways an&rsquo; customs,<br/>
+    ne&rsquo;er to feshion bent his knee;<br/>
+Oppen t&rsquo; ranks, lads, let him enter;<br/>
+    he&rsquo;s a Roman same as we.&rdquo;<br/>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-10" id="fn-10"></a> <a href="#fnref-10">[1]</a>
+Poured.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-11" id="fn-11"></a> <a href="#fnref-11">[2]</a>
+Slave.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-12" id="fn-12"></a> <a href="#fnref-12">[3]</a>
+Moles.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-13" id="fn-13"></a> <a href="#fnref-13">[4]</a>
+Fleas.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-14" id="fn-14"></a> <a href="#fnref-14">[5]</a>
+Cow-house.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-15" id="fn-15"></a> <a href="#fnref-15">[6]</a>
+Affected pronunciation.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>Telling the Bees</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+On many Yorkshire farms it was&mdash;perhaps still is&mdash;the custom to tell
+the bees when a death had taken place in the family. The hive had to be put
+into mourning, and when the arval, or funeral feast, was held, after the return
+from the grave, small portions of everything eaten or drunk had to be given to
+the bees in a saucer. Failure to do this meant either the death or departure of
+the bees.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Whisht! laatle bees, sad tidings I bear,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low ;<br/>
+Cauld i&rsquo; his grave ligs your maister dear,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low.<br/>
+Nea mair he&rsquo;ll ride to t&rsquo; soond o&rsquo; t&rsquo; horn,<br/>
+Nea mair he&rsquo;ll fettle his sickle for t&rsquo; corn.<br/>
+Nea mair he&rsquo;ll coom to your skep of a morn,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low.<br/>
+<br/>
+Muther sits cryin&rsquo; i&rsquo; t&rsquo; ingle nook,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low ;<br/>
+Parson&rsquo;s anent her wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; Holy Book,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low.<br/>
+T&rsquo; mourners are coom, an&rsquo; t&rsquo; arval is spread,<br/>
+Cakes fresh frae t&rsquo; yoon,<a href="#fn-16" name="fnref-16" id="fnref-16"><sup>[1]</sup></a> an&rsquo; fine havver-bread.<br/>
+But toom&rsquo;<a href="#fn-17" name="fnref-17" id="fnref-17"><sup>[2]</sup></a> is t&rsquo; seat at t&rsquo; table-head,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low.<br/>
+<br/>
+Look, conny<a href="#fn-18" name="fnref-18" id="fnref-18"><sup>[3]</sup></a> bees, I&rsquo;s winndin&rsquo; black crape,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low ;<br/>
+Slowly an&rsquo; sadly your skep I mun drape,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low.<br/>
+Else you will sicken an&rsquo; dwine<a href="#fn-19" name="fnref-19" id="fnref-19"><sup>[4]</sup></a> reet away,<br/>
+Heart-brokken bees, now your maister is clay ;<br/>
+Or, mebbe, you&rsquo;l leave us wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; dawn o&rsquo; t&rsquo;
+day,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low.<br/>
+<br/>
+Sitha ! I bring you your share o&rsquo; our feast,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low;<br/>
+Cakes an&rsquo; yal<a href="#fn-20" name="fnref-20" id="fnref-20"><sup>[5]</sup></a> an&rsquo; wine you mun taste,<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low.<br/>
+Gie some to t&rsquo; queen on her gowlden throne,<br/>
+There&rsquo;s foison to feed both worker an&rsquo; drone ;<br/>
+Oh ! dean&rsquo;t let us fend for oursels alone ;<br/>
+    Bees, bees, murmurin&rsquo; low.<br/>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-16" id="fn-16"></a> <a href="#fnref-16">[1]</a>
+Oven.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-17" id="fn-17"></a> <a href="#fnref-17">[2]</a>
+Empty.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-18" id="fn-18"></a> <a href="#fnref-18">[3]</a>
+Darling.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-19" id="fn-19"></a> <a href="#fnref-19">[4]</a>
+Waste.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-20" id="fn-20"></a> <a href="#fnref-20">[5]</a>
+Ale.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>The Two Lamplighters</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+I niver thowt when I grew owd<br/>
+    I&rsquo;d tak to leetin&rsquo; lamps;<br/>
+I sud have said, I&rsquo;d rayther pad<br/>
+    My hoof on t&rsquo; road wi&rsquo; tramps.<br/>
+But sin I gate that skelp<a href="#fn-21" name="fnref-21" id="fnref-21"><sup>[1]</sup></a> i&rsquo; t&rsquo; mine,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;m wankle<a href="#fn-22" name="fnref-22" id="fnref-22"><sup>[2]</sup></a> i&rsquo; my heead;<br/>
+So gaffer said, I&rsquo;d give ower wark<br/>
+    An&rsquo; leet town lamps atsteead.<br/>
+<br/>
+At first, when I were liggin&rsquo; snug<br/>
+    I&rsquo; bed, warm as a bee,<br/>
+&rsquo;T were hard to rise and get agate<br/>
+    As sooin as t&rsquo; clock strake three.<br/>
+An&rsquo; I were flaid to hear my steps<br/>
+    Echoin&rsquo; on ivery wall;<br/>
+An&rsquo; flaider yet when down by t&rsquo; church<br/>
+    Ullets would skreek and call.<br/>
+<br/>
+But now I&rsquo;m flaid o&rsquo; nowt; I love<br/>
+    All unkerd<a href="#fn-23" name="fnref-23" id="fnref-23"><sup>[3]</sup></a> sounds o&rsquo; t&rsquo; neet,<br/>
+Frae childer talkin&rsquo; i&rsquo; their dreams<br/>
+    To t&rsquo; tramp o&rsquo; p&rsquo;licemen&rsquo; feet.<br/>
+But most of all I love to hark<br/>
+    To t&rsquo; song o&rsquo; t&rsquo; birds at dawn;<br/>
+They wakken up afore it gloams,<br/>
+    When t&rsquo; dew ligs thick on t&rsquo; lawn.<br/>
+<br/>
+If I feel lonesome, up I look<br/>
+    To t&rsquo; sky aboon my heead;<br/>
+An&rsquo; theer&rsquo;s yon stars all glestrin&rsquo; breet,<br/>
+    Like daisies in a mead.<br/>
+But sometimes, when I&rsquo;m glowerin&rsquo; up,<br/>
+    I see the Lord hissen;<br/>
+He&rsquo;s doutin&rsquo; all yon lamps o&rsquo; Heaven<br/>
+    That shines on mortal men.<br/>
+<br/>
+He lowps alang frae star to star,<br/>
+    As cobby<a href="#fn-24" name="fnref-24" id="fnref-24"><sup>[4]</sup></a> as can be;<br/>
+Mebbe He reckons fowk&rsquo;s asleep,<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; niver an eye to see.<br/>
+But I hae catched Him at his wark,<br/>
+    For all He maks no din;<br/>
+He leaves a track o&rsquo; powder&rsquo;d gowd<a href="#fn-25" name="fnref-25" id="fnref-25"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/>
+    To show where He has bin.<br/>
+<br/>
+He&rsquo;s got big lamps an&rsquo; laatle lamps,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; lamps that twinkles red;<br/>
+Im capped to see Him dout &rsquo;em all<br/>
+    Afore I&rsquo;m back i&rsquo; bed.<br/>
+But He don&rsquo;t laik about His wark,<br/>
+    Or stop to hark to t&rsquo; birds;<br/>
+He minds His business, does the Lord,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; wastes no gaumless words.<br/>
+<br/>
+I grow more like Him ivery day,<br/>
+    For all I walk so lame;<br/>
+An&rsquo;, happen, there will coom a time<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ll beat Him at His game.<br/>
+Thrang as Throp&rsquo;s wife, I&rsquo;ll dout my lamps<br/>
+    Afore He&rsquo;s gotten so far;<br/>
+An&rsquo; then I&rsquo;ll shout&mdash;&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve won my race,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ve bet Him by a star.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-21" id="fn-21"></a> <a href="#fnref-21">[1]</a>
+Blow.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-22" id="fn-22"></a> <a href="#fnref-22">[2]</a>
+Unsteady.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-23" id="fn-23"></a> <a href="#fnref-23">[3]</a>
+Strange, eerie.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-24" id="fn-24"></a> <a href="#fnref-24">[4]</a>
+Active.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-25" id="fn-25"></a> <a href="#fnref-25">[5]</a>
+The Milky Way.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>Our Beck</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+I niver heerd its name; we call it just &ldquo;Our beck.&rdquo;<br/>
+    Mebbe, there&rsquo;s bigger streams down Ripon way;<br/>
+But if thou wants clean watter, by my neck!<br/>
+    Thou&rsquo;ll travel far for cleaner, ony day.<br/>
+<br/>
+Clear watter! Why, when t&rsquo; sun is up i&rsquo; t&rsquo; sky,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ve seen yon flickerin&rsquo; shadows o&rsquo; lile trout<br/>
+Glidin&rsquo; ower t&rsquo; shingly boddom. Step thou nigh,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; gloor at t&rsquo; minnows dartin&rsquo; in an&rsquo; out.<br/>
+<br/>
+Our beck flows straight frae slacks o&rsquo; moorland peat,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; gethers sweetness out o&rsquo; t&rsquo; ling an&rsquo;
+gorse;<br/>
+At first its voice sounds weantly<a href="#fn-26" name="fnref-26" id="fnref-26"><sup>[1]</sup></a> saft an&rsquo; leet,<br/>
+    But graws i&rsquo; strength wi&rsquo; lowpin ower yon force.<br/>
+<br/>
+Then thou sud see the birds alang its banks&mdash;<br/>
+    Grey heronsews, that coom to fish at dawn;<br/>
+Dippers, that under t&rsquo; watter play sike pranks,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; lang-nebbed curlews, swaimish<a href="#fn-27" name="fnref-27" id="fnref-27"><sup>[2]</sup></a> as a fawn.<br/>
+<br/>
+Soomtimes I&rsquo;ve seen young otters leave their holes,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; laik like kitlins ower the silver dew;<br/>
+An&rsquo; I&rsquo;ve watched squirrels climmin&rsquo; up the boles<br/>
+    O&rsquo; beech trees, lowpin&rsquo; leet frae beugh to beugh.<br/>
+<br/>
+Fowers! Why, thou&rsquo;d fill thy skep,<a href="#fn-28" name="fnref-28" id="fnref-28"><sup>[3]</sup></a> lass, in an hour,<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; gowlands, paigles, blobs,<a href="#fn-29" name="fnref-29" id="fnref-29"><sup>[4]</sup></a> an&rsquo; sike-like things;<br/>
+We&rsquo;ve daffydills to deck a bridal bower,<br/>
+    Pansies, wheer lady-cows<a href="#fn-30" name="fnref-30" id="fnref-30"><sup>[5]</sup></a> can dry their wings.<br/>
+<br/>
+Young childer often bathe, when t&rsquo;weather&rsquo;s fine,<br/>
+    Up yonder, wheer t&rsquo; owd miller&rsquo;s bigged his weir;<br/>
+I like to see their lish,<a href="#fn-31" name="fnref-31" id="fnref-31"><sup>[6]</sup></a> nakt bodies shine,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; watch &rsquo;em dive i&rsquo; t&rsquo; watter widoot fear.<br/>
+<br/>
+Ay, yon&rsquo;s our brig, bent like an archer&rsquo;s bow,<br/>
+    It&rsquo;s t&rsquo; meetin&rsquo; place o&rsquo; folk frae near an&rsquo;
+far;<br/>
+Young &rsquo;uns coom theer wi&rsquo; lasses laughin&rsquo; low,<br/>
+    Owd &rsquo;uns to talk o&rsquo; politics an&rsquo; t&rsquo; war.<br/>
+<br/>
+It&rsquo;s daft when chaps that sit i&rsquo; Parliament<br/>
+    Weant tak advice frae lads that talk farm-twang;<br/>
+If t&rsquo; coontry goes to t&rsquo; dogs, it&rsquo;s &rsquo;cause
+they&rsquo;ve sent<br/>
+    Ower mony city folk to mend what&rsquo;s wrang.<br/>
+<br/>
+They&rsquo;ve taen our day-tale men<a href="#fn-32" name="fnref-32" id="fnref-32"><sup>[7]</sup></a> to feight for t&rsquo; land,<br/>
+    Then tell us we mun keep our staggarths<a href="#fn-33" name="fnref-33" id="fnref-33"><sup>[8]</sup></a> full.<br/>
+What&rsquo;s lasses, gauvies,<a href="#fn-34" name="fnref-34" id="fnref-34"><sup>[9]</sup></a> greybeards stark<a href="#fn-35" name="fnref-35" id="fnref-35"><sup>[10]</sup></a> i&rsquo; t&rsquo;
+hand,<br/>
+    To strip wer kye, an&rsquo; ploo, an&rsquo; tew wi&rsquo; t&rsquo;
+shool?<a href="#fn-36" name="fnref-36" id="fnref-36"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/>
+<br/>
+But theer, I&rsquo;ll nurse my threapin&rsquo; while it rains,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; while my rheumatiz is bad to bide;<br/>
+I mun step heamwards now, through t&rsquo; yatts<a href="#fn-37" name="fnref-37" id="fnref-37"><sup>[12]</sup></a> an&rsquo; lanes,<br/>
+    Wheer t&rsquo; owd lass waits for me by t&rsquo; fireside.<br/>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-26" id="fn-26"></a> <a href="#fnref-26">[1]</a>
+Strangely.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-27" id="fn-27"></a> <a href="#fnref-27">[2]</a>
+Timid.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-28" id="fn-28"></a> <a href="#fnref-28">[3]</a>
+Basket.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-29" id="fn-29"></a> <a href="#fnref-29">[4]</a>
+Kingcups, cowslips, globe-flowers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-30" id="fn-30"></a> <a href="#fnref-30">[5]</a>
+Ladybirds.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-31" id="fn-31"></a> <a href="#fnref-31">[6]</a>
+Smooth.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-32" id="fn-32"></a> <a href="#fnref-32">[7]</a>
+Day Labourers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-33" id="fn-33"></a> <a href="#fnref-33">[8]</a>
+Stock Yards.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-34" id="fn-34"></a> <a href="#fnref-34">[9]</a>
+Simpletons.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-35" id="fn-35"></a> <a href="#fnref-35">[10]</a>
+Stiff.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-36" id="fn-36"></a> <a href="#fnref-36">[11]</a>
+Shovel.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-37" id="fn-37"></a> <a href="#fnref-37">[12]</a>
+Gates.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>Lord George</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+These verses were written soon after the Old Age Pensions Bill came into
+operation.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+I&rsquo;d walk frae here to Skipton,<br/>
+    Ten mile o&rsquo; clarty<a href="#fn-38" name="fnref-38" id="fnref-38"><sup>[1]</sup></a> lanes,<br/>
+If I might see him face to face<br/>
+    An&rsquo; thank him for his pains.<br/>
+He&rsquo;s ta&rsquo;en me out o&rsquo; t&rsquo; Bastile,<a href="#fn-39" name="fnref-39" id="fnref-39"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/>
+    He&rsquo;s gi&rsquo;en me life that&rsquo;s free:<br/>
+Five shill&rsquo;n a week for fuglin&rsquo;<a href="#fn-40" name="fnref-40" id="fnref-40"><sup>[3]</sup></a> Death<br/>
+    Is what Lord George gives me.<br/>
+<br/>
+He gives me leet an&rsquo; firin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; flour to bak i&rsquo; t&rsquo; yoon.<a href="#fn-41" name="fnref-41" id="fnref-41"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/>
+I&rsquo;ve tea to mesh for ivery meal<br/>
+    An&rsquo; sup all t&rsquo; afternoon.<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve nowt to do but thank him,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; mak&rsquo; a cross wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; pen;<br/>
+Five shillin&rsquo; a week for nobbut that!<br/>
+    Gow! he&rsquo;s the jewel o&rsquo; men.<br/>
+<br/>
+I niver mell on pol&rsquo;tics,<br/>
+    But I do love a lord;<br/>
+He spends his savin&rsquo;s like a king,<br/>
+    Wheer other fowks &rsquo;ll hoard.<br/>
+I know a vast o&rsquo; widdies<br/>
+    That&rsquo;s seen their seventieth year;<br/>
+Lord George, he addles brass for all,<br/>
+    Though lots on &rsquo;t goes for beer.<br/>
+<br/>
+If my owd man were livin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    He&rsquo;d say as I spak true;<br/>
+He couldn&rsquo;t thole them yallow Rads,<br/>
+    But awlus voted blue.<br/>
+An&rsquo; parson&rsquo;s wife, shoo telled me<br/>
+    That we&rsquo;ll sooin go to t&rsquo; poll;<br/>
+I hope shoo&rsquo;s reight; I&rsquo;ll vote for George,<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; all my heart an&rsquo; soul.<br/>
+<br/>
+I don&rsquo;t know wheer he springs frae,<br/>
+    Happen it&rsquo;s down Leeds way;<br/>
+But ivery neet an&rsquo; mornin&rsquo;<br/>
+    For his lang life I pray.<br/>
+He&rsquo;s ta&rsquo;en me out o&rsquo; t&rsquo; Bastile,<br/>
+    He&rsquo;s gi&rsquo;en me life that&rsquo;s free:<br/>
+Five shill&rsquo;n a week for fuglin&rsquo; Death<br/>
+    Is what Lord George gives me.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-38" id="fn-38"></a> <a href="#fnref-38">[1]</a>
+Muddy.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-39" id="fn-39"></a> <a href="#fnref-39">[2]</a>
+Workhouse.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-40" id="fn-40"></a> <a href="#fnref-40">[3]</a>
+Cheating.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-41" id="fn-41"></a> <a href="#fnref-41">[4]</a>
+Oven.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>Jenny Storm</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Young Jenny, she walked ower t&rsquo; ribbed sea-sand,<br/>
+    (T&rsquo; lairocks sing sae sweetly, O!)<br/>
+Wheer she met a fisher-lad, net i&rsquo; t&rsquo; hand,<br/>
+    As t&rsquo; tide cam hoamin&rsquo;<a href="#fn-42" name="fnref-42" id="fnref-42"><sup>[1]</sup></a> in.<br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;Jenny, thy farm is twee mile away;<br/>
+    (T&rsquo; wing-mouse flits sae featly, O!)<br/>
+Say, what is thou latin&rsquo;<a href="#fn-43" name="fnref-43" id="fnref-43"><sup>[2]</sup></a> at dusk &rsquo;o day,<br/>
+    When t&rsquo; tide cooms hoamin&rsquo; in.&rdquo;<br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;s latin&rsquo; waif an&rsquo; straif<a href="#fn-44" name="fnref-44" id="fnref-44"><sup>[3]</sup></a> by the feam,<br/>
+    (O! esh an&rsquo; yak are good for bield)<br/>
+I&rsquo;s latin&rsquo; timmer to big me a heam,<br/>
+    As t&rsquo; tide cooms hoamin&rsquo; in.&rdquo;<br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;What for is thou latin&rsquo; waif an&rsquo; straif?<br/>
+    (T&rsquo; summer-gauze<a href="#fn-45" name="fnref-45" id="fnref-45"><sup>[4]</sup></a> floats ower hedge an&rsquo; field)<br/>
+What for is thou biggin&rsquo; a heam an&rsquo; a hafe,<a href="#fn-46" name="fnref-46" id="fnref-46"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/>
+    When t&rsquo; tide cooms hoamin&rsquo; in?&rdquo;<br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;To-morn is t&rsquo; day when I sal be wed,<br/>
+    (T&rsquo; bride-wain&rsquo;s plenished wi&rsquo; serge an&rsquo; silk)<br/>
+Jock&rsquo;s anchored his boat i&rsquo; t&rsquo; lang road-stead,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; t&rsquo; tide cooms hoamin&rsquo; in.<br />
+<br />
+To-morn we gan to t&rsquo; kirk on t&rsquo; brow,<br/>
+    (Nesh satin shoon as white as milk)<br/>
+Fisher-folk wi&rsquo; me, an&rsquo; ploo-lads enow,<br/>
+    When t&rsquo; tide cooms hoamin&rsquo; in.&rdquo;<br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;Frae thy jilted lad what gift mun thou get?<br/>
+    (T&rsquo; lairocks sing sae sweetly, O!))<br/>
+Twee lucky-steanes, or fine ear-rings o&rsquo; jet,<br/>
+    When t&rsquo; tide cooms hoamin&rsquo; in?&rdquo;<br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tak nayther rings nor steanes frae thee,<br/>
+    (T&rsquo; wing-mouse flits sae featly, O!)<br/>
+But yon token I gave thee gie back to me,<br/>
+    Noo t&rsquo; tide cooms hoamin&rsquo; in.&rdquo;<br/><br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;Thy token is safe i&rsquo; t&rsquo; Boggle Nook<br/>
+    (T&rsquo; sea-mew plains when t&rsquo; sun clims doon)<br/>
+Thou can finnd it thisel, if thou&rsquo;ll gan an&rsquo; look,<br/>
+    When t&rsquo; tide cooms hoamin&rsquo; in.&rdquo;<br />
+<br />
+Young Jenny, she tripped ower t&rsquo; yallow strand,<br/>
+    (White ullets<a href="#fn-47" name="fnref-47" id="fnref-47"><sup>[6]</sup></a> dance i&rsquo; t&rsquo; glent o&rsquo; t&rsquo; moon)<br/>
+Her step was ower leet to dimple t&rsquo; sand,<br/>
+    As t&rsquo; tide cam hoamin&rsquo; in.<br />
+<br />
+I&rsquo; t&rsquo; Boggle Nook lay t&rsquo; lad she sud wed;<br/>
+    T&rsquo; neet-hags skreek sae dowly, O!)<br/>
+Foul sea-weed cluthered<a href="#fn-48" name="fnref-48" id="fnref-48"><sup>[7]</sup></a> aboon his head,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; t&rsquo; mouth she had kissed wi&rsquo; blood was red,<br/>
+As t&rsquo; tide cam hoamin&rsquo; in.<br />
+<br />
+Nea tear she shed, nea word she spak,<br/>
+    (T&rsquo; witches gloor sae foully, O!)<br/>
+But an awfish<a href="#fn-49" name="fnref-49" id="fnref-49"><sup>[8]</sup></a> laugh flew ower t&rsquo; sea-wrack,<a href="#fn-50" name="fnref-50" id="fnref-50"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/>
+    As t&rsquo; tide cam hoamin&rsquo; in.<br />
+<br />
+They carried them heam by t&rsquo; leet o&rsquo; t&rsquo; moon,<br/>
+    (T&rsquo; neet-hags skreek sae dowly, O!)<br/>
+Him to his grave on t&rsquo; brow aboon,<br/>
+Her to yon mad-house i&rsquo; Scarbro&rsquo; toon,<br/>
+    Wheer t&rsquo; tide cooms hoamin&rsquo; in.<br/>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-42" id="fn-42"></a> <a href="#fnref-42">[1]</a>
+Murmuring.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-43" id="fn-43"></a> <a href="#fnref-43">[2]</a>
+Searching for.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-44" id="fn-44"></a> <a href="#fnref-44">[3]</a>
+Flotsam and jetsam.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-45" id="fn-45"></a> <a href="#fnref-45">[4]</a>
+Gossamer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-46" id="fn-46"></a> <a href="#fnref-46">[5]</a>
+Shelter.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-47" id="fn-47"></a> <a href="#fnref-47">[6]</a>
+Owls.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-48" id="fn-48"></a> <a href="#fnref-48">[7]</a>
+Tangled.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-49" id="fn-49"></a> <a href="#fnref-49">[8]</a>
+Eldritch / hideous.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-50" id="fn-50"></a> <a href="#fnref-50">[9]</a>
+Drifts of sea-weed.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>The New Englishman</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+I&rsquo;ve lived all my life i&rsquo; Keighley,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;m a Yorkshire artisan;<br/>
+An&rsquo; when I were just turned seventy<br/>
+    I became an Englishman.<br />
+<br />
+Nat&rsquo;ralised German! nay, deng it!<br/>
+    I&rsquo;m British-born, same as thee!<br/>
+But I niver thowt mich to my country,<br/>
+    While<a href="#fn-51" name="fnref-51" id="fnref-51"><sup>[1]</sup></a> my country thowt mich to me.<br />
+<br />
+I were proud o&rsquo; my lodge an&rsquo; my union,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; proud o&rsquo; my town an&rsquo; my shire;<br/>
+But all t&rsquo; consans o&rsquo; t&rsquo; nation,<br/>
+    I left to t&rsquo; parson an&rsquo; t&rsquo; squire.<br />
+<br />
+Class-war were t&rsquo; faith that I Iived for,<br/>
+    I call&rsquo;d all capit&rsquo;lists sharks;<br/>
+An&rsquo; &ldquo;T&rsquo; workin&rsquo; man has no country,&rdquo;<br/>
+    Were my Gospel accordin&rsquo; to Marx.<br />
+<br />
+When I&rsquo;d lossen my job back i&rsquo; t&rsquo; eighties,<br/>
+    An were laikin&rsquo; for well-nigh two year,<br/>
+Who said that an out-o&rsquo;-wark fettler<br/>
+    Were costin&rsquo; his country dear?<br />
+<br />
+Owd England cared nowt about me,<br/>
+    I could clem<a href="#fn-52" name="fnref-52" id="fnref-52"><sup>[2]</sup></a> wi&rsquo; my barns an&rsquo; my wife;<br/>
+Shoo were ower thrang wi&rsquo; buildin&rsquo; up t&rsquo; empire<br/>
+    To build up a brokken life.<br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;Ivery man for hissen,&rdquo; shoo said,<br/>
+    &ldquo;An&rsquo; t&rsquo; dule can catch what he can;<br/>
+Labour&rsquo;s cheap an&rsquo; trade&rsquo;s worth more<br/>
+    Nor t&rsquo; life of a workin&rsquo; man.&rdquo;<br />
+<br />
+When t&rsquo; country were chuff,<a href="#fn-53" name="fnref-53" id="fnref-53"><sup>[3]</sup></a> an&rsquo; boasted<br/>
+    That t&rsquo; sun niver set on her flags,<br/>
+I thowt o&rsquo; wer back-to-back houses,<br/>
+    Wer childer i&rsquo; spetches<a href="#fn-54" name="fnref-54" id="fnref-54"><sup>[4]</sup></a> an&rsquo; rags,<br />
+<br />
+When t&rsquo; country drave by i&rsquo; her carriage,<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; flunkies afore an&rsquo; behind,<br/>
+I left her to bettermy bodies,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; I gav her a taste o&rsquo; my mind.<br />
+<br />
+But when shoo were liggin&rsquo; i&rsquo; t&rsquo; gutter,<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; a milit&rsquo;rist mob at her throit,<br/>
+&ldquo;Hands off her!&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;shoo&rsquo;s my
+mother:&rdquo;<br/>
+    An&rsquo; I doffed my cap an&rsquo; my coit.<br />
+<br />
+I&rsquo;d gien ower wark at seventy,<br/>
+    But I gat agate once more;<br/>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll live for my country, not on her&rdquo;<br/>
+    Were my words on t&rsquo; fettlers&rsquo; floor.<br />
+<br />
+Shoo&rsquo;s putten her trust i&rsquo; us workers,<br/>
+    We&rsquo;ll save her, niver fear;<br/>
+Feight for her, live for her, dee for her,<br/>
+    Her childer that loves her dear.<br />
+<br />
+Eight o&rsquo; my grandsons has fallen,<br/>
+    My youngest lad&rsquo;s crippled i&rsquo; t&rsquo; arm;<br/>
+But I&rsquo;ll give her choose-what<a href="#fn-55" name="fnref-55" id="fnref-55"><sup>[5]</sup></a> shoo axes,<br/>
+    Afore I&rsquo;ll see her tak harm.<br />
+<br />
+T&rsquo; war is a curse an&rsquo; a blessin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    If fowks could understan&rsquo;;<br/>
+It&rsquo;s brokken my home an&rsquo; my childer,<br/>
+    But it&rsquo;s made me an Englishman.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-51" id="fn-51"></a> <a href="#fnref-51">[1]</a>
+Until.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-52" id="fn-52"></a> <a href="#fnref-52">[2]</a>
+Starve.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-53" id="fn-53"></a> <a href="#fnref-53">[3]</a>
+Arrogant.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-54" id="fn-54"></a> <a href="#fnref-54">[4]</a>
+Patches.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-55" id="fn-55"></a> <a href="#fnref-55">[5]</a>
+Whatever.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>The Bells of Kirkby Overblow</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Draw back my curtains, Mary,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; oppen t&rsquo; windey wide;<br/>
+Ay, ay, I know I&rsquo;m deein&rsquo;,<br/>
+    While to-morn I&rsquo;ll hardlins bide.<br/>
+But yit afore all&rsquo;s ovver,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; I lig cowd as snow,<br/>
+I&rsquo;ll hear once more them owd church bells<br/>
+    O&rsquo; Kirkby Overblow.<br />
+<br />
+Mony a neet an&rsquo; mornin&rsquo;<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ve heerd yon church bells peal;<br/>
+An&rsquo; how I&rsquo;ve threaped an&rsquo; cursed &rsquo;em<br/>
+    When I was strong an&rsquo; weel!<br/>
+Gert, skelpin&rsquo;, chunterin&rsquo; taistrils,<a href="#fn-56" name="fnref-56" id="fnref-56"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/>
+    All janglin&rsquo; in a row!<br/>
+Ay, mony a time I&rsquo;ve cursed yon bells<br/>
+    O&rsquo; Kirkby Overblow.<br />
+<br />
+When you hear yon church bells ringin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    You can&rsquo;t enjoy your sin;<br/>
+T&rsquo; bells clutches at your heart-strings<br/>
+    I&rsquo; t&rsquo; ale-house ower your gin.<br/>
+At pitch-an&rsquo;-toss you&rsquo;re laikin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    Down theer i&rsquo; t&rsquo; wood below;<br/>
+An&rsquo; then you damn them rowpy<a href="#fn-57" name="fnref-57" id="fnref-57"><sup>[2]</sup></a> bells<br/>
+    O&rsquo; Kirkby Overblow.<br />
+<br />
+An&rsquo; when I&rsquo;ve set off poachin&rsquo;<br/>
+    At back-end o&rsquo; the year,<br/>
+Wi&rsquo; ferret, bag an&rsquo; snickle,<a href="#fn-58" name="fnref-58" id="fnref-58"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/>
+    Church bells have catched my ear.<br/>
+&ldquo;Thou&rsquo;s takken t&rsquo; road to Hell, lad,<br/>
+    Wheer t&rsquo; pit-fire&rsquo;s bumin&rsquo; slow;&rdquo;<br/>
+That&rsquo;s what yon bells kept shoutin&rsquo; out<br/>
+    At Kirkby Overblow.<br />
+<br />
+But now I&rsquo;m owd an&rsquo; bed-fast,<br/>
+    I ommost like their sound,<br/>
+Ringin&rsquo; so clear i&rsquo; t&rsquo; star-leet<br/>
+    Across the frozzen ground.<br/>
+I niver mell on<a href="#fn-59" name="fnref-59" id="fnref-59"><sup>[4]</sup></a> parsons,<br/>
+    There ain&rsquo;t a prayer I know;<br/>
+But prayer an&rsquo; sarmon&rsquo;s i&rsquo; yon bells<br/>
+    O&rsquo; Kirkby Overblow.<br />
+<br />
+Six boards o&rsquo; gooid stout ellum<br/>
+    Is what I&rsquo;ll want to-morn;<br/>
+Then lay me low i&rsquo; t&rsquo; church-yard<br/>
+    Aneath t&rsquo; owd crooked thorn.<br/>
+I&rsquo;ll have no funeral sarvice<br/>
+    When I&rsquo;m browt down below,<br/>
+But let &rsquo;em touzle t&rsquo; bells like mad<br/>
+    At Kirkby Overblow.<br />
+<br />
+I don&rsquo;t know wheer I&rsquo;m boun&rsquo; for,<br/>
+    It hardlins can be Heaven;<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve sinned more sins nor most men<br/>
+    &rsquo;Twixt one an&rsquo; seven-seven.<br/>
+But this I&rsquo;ll tak my oath on:<br/>
+    Wheeriver I mun go,<br/>
+I&rsquo;ll hark to t&rsquo; echoes o&rsquo; yon bells<br/>
+    O&rsquo; Kirkby Overblow.<br/>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-56" id="fn-56"></a> <a href="#fnref-56">[1]</a>
+Unwieldy, grumbling rascals.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-57" id="fn-57"></a> <a href="#fnref-57">[2]</a>
+Hoarse.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-58" id="fn-58"></a> <a href="#fnref-58">[3]</a>
+Snare.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-59" id="fn-59"></a> <a href="#fnref-59">[4]</a>
+Meddle with.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>The Gardener and the Robin</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Why! Bobbie, so thou&rsquo;s coom agean!<br/>
+    I&rsquo;m fain to see thee here;<br/>
+It&rsquo;s lang sin I&rsquo;ve set een on thee,<br/>
+    It&rsquo;s ommost hauf a yeer.<br/>
+What&rsquo;s that thou says? Thou&rsquo;s taen a wife<br/>
+    An&rsquo; raised a family.<br/>
+It seems thou&rsquo;s gien &rsquo;em all the slip<br/>
+    Now back-end&rsquo;s drawin&rsquo; nigh.<br />
+<br />
+I mun forgi&rsquo;e thee; we&rsquo;re owd friends,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; fratchin&rsquo;s not for us;<br/>
+Blackbirds an&rsquo; spinks<a href="#fn-60" name="fnref-60" id="fnref-60"><sup>[1]</sup></a> I can&rsquo;t abide,<br/>
+    At doves an&rsquo; crows I cuss.<br/>
+But thou&rsquo;ll noan steal my strawberries,<br/>
+    Or nip my buds o&rsquo; plum;<br/>
+Most feather-fowl I drive away,<br/>
+    But thou can awlus coom.<br />
+<br />
+Ay, that&rsquo;s thy place, at top o&rsquo; t&rsquo; clod,<br/>
+    Thy heead cocked o&rsquo; one side,<br/>
+Lookin&rsquo; as far-learnt as a judge.<br/>
+    Is that a worrm thou&rsquo;s spied?<br/>
+By t&rsquo; Megs! he&rsquo;s well-nigh six inch lang,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; reed as t&rsquo; gate i&rsquo; t&rsquo; park;<br/>
+If thou don&rsquo;t mesh him up a bit,<br/>
+    He&rsquo;ll gie thee belly-wark.<br />
+<br />
+My missus awlus lets me know<br/>
+    I&rsquo;m noan so despert thin;<br/>
+If I ate sausages as thou<br/>
+    Eats worrms, I&rsquo;d brust my skin!<br/>
+Howd on! leave soom for t&rsquo; mowdiwarps<a href="#fn-61" name="fnref-61" id="fnref-61"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/>
+    That scrats down under t&rsquo; grund ;<br/>
+Of worrms, an&rsquo; mawks,<a href="#fn-62" name="fnref-62" id="fnref-62"><sup>[3]</sup></a> an&rsquo; bummel-clocks<a href="#fn-63" name="fnref-63" id="fnref-63"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/>
+    Thou&rsquo;s etten hauf a pund.<br />
+<br />
+So now thou&rsquo;ll clear thy pipes an&rsquo; sing:<br/>
+    Grace after meat, I s&rsquo;pose.<br/>
+Thou looks as holy as t&rsquo; owd saint<br/>
+    I&rsquo; church wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; brokken nose.<br/>
+Thou&rsquo;s plannin&rsquo; marlocks<a href="#fn-64" name="fnref-64" id="fnref-64"><sup>[5]</sup></a> all the time,<br/>
+    Donned i&rsquo; thy sowdier coat;<br/>
+An&rsquo; what we tak for hymns o&rsquo; praise<br/>
+    Is just thy fratchin&rsquo; note.<br />
+<br />
+I&rsquo;ve seen thee feightin&rsquo; theer on t&rsquo; lawn,<br/>
+    Beneath yon laurel tree;<br/>
+Thy neb was reed wi&rsquo; blooid, thou looked<br/>
+    As chuffy<a href="#fn-65" name="fnref-65" id="fnref-65"><sup>[6]</sup></a> as could be.<br/>
+Thou&rsquo;s got no mense nor morals, Bob,<br/>
+    But weel I know thy charm.<br/>
+Ay, thou can stand upon my spade.<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ll niver do thee harm.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-60" id="fn-60"></a> <a href="#fnref-60">[1]</a>
+Chaffinches.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-61" id="fn-61"></a> <a href="#fnref-61">[2]</a>
+Moles.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-62" id="fn-62"></a> <a href="#fnref-62">[3]</a>
+Maggots.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-63" id="fn-63"></a> <a href="#fnref-63">[4]</a>
+Beetles.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-64" id="fn-64"></a> <a href="#fnref-64">[5]</a>
+Tricks.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-65" id="fn-65"></a> <a href="#fnref-65">[6]</a>
+Haughty.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>Lile Doad</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The Lord&rsquo;s bin hard on me, Sir,<br/>
+    He&rsquo;s stown my barn away.<br/>
+O dowly, dowly was that neet<br/>
+    He stole lile Doad away!<br />
+<br />
+&rsquo;Twas Whissuntide we wedded,<br/>
+    Next Easter he was born,<br/>
+Just as t&rsquo; last star i&rsquo; t&rsquo; April sky<br/>
+    Had faded into t&rsquo; morn.<br/>
+Throstles were singin, canty,<a href="#fn-66" name="fnref-66" id="fnref-66"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/>
+    For they&rsquo;d their young i&rsquo; t&rsquo; nest;<br/>
+But birds don&rsquo;t know a mother&rsquo;s love<br/>
+    That howds her barn to t&rsquo; breast.<br />
+<br />
+When wark was ower i&rsquo; summer,<br/>
+    I nussed him on my knees;<br/>
+An&rsquo; Mike browt home at lowsin&rsquo;-time<br/>
+    Wild rasps an&rsquo; strawberries.<br/>
+We used to sit on t&rsquo; door-sill<br/>
+    I&rsquo; t&rsquo; leet o&rsquo; t&rsquo; harvist-moon,<br/>
+While our lile Doad would clench his fists<br/>
+    An&rsquo; suck his toes an&rsquo; croon.<br />
+<br />
+But when t&rsquo; mell-sheaf<a href="#fn-67" name="fnref-67" id="fnref-67"><sup>[2]</sup></a> was gotten,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; back-end days set in,<br/>
+Wi&rsquo; frost at neet an&rsquo; roke<a href="#fn-68" name="fnref-68" id="fnref-68"><sup>[3]</sup></a> by day,<br/>
+    His face gate pinched an&rsquo; thin.<br/>
+We niver knew what ailed him,<br/>
+    He faded like a floor,<br/>
+He faded same as skies&rsquo;ll fade<br/>
+    When t&rsquo; sun dips into t&rsquo; moor.<br />
+<br />
+Church bells on Kersmas mornin&rsquo;<br/>
+    Rang out so merrily,<br/>
+But cowd an&rsquo; dreesome were our hearts:<br/>
+    We knew lile Doad must dee.<br/>
+He lay so still in his creddle,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; slowly he dwined away,<br/>
+While<a href="#fn-69" name="fnref-69" id="fnref-69"><sup>[4]</sup></a> I laid two pennies on his een<br/>
+    On Holy Innocents&rsquo; Day.<br />
+<br />
+The Lord&rsquo;s bin hard on me, Sir,<br/>
+    He&rsquo;s stown my barn away.<br/>
+O, dowly, dowly was that neet<br/>
+    He stole lile Doad away!
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-66" id="fn-66"></a> <a href="#fnref-66">[1]</a>
+Briskly.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-67" id="fn-67"></a> <a href="#fnref-67">[2]</a>
+The last sheaf of the harvest.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-68" id="fn-68"></a> <a href="#fnref-68">[3]</a>
+Mist.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-69" id="fn-69"></a> <a href="#fnref-69">[4]</a>
+Until.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>His Last Sail</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+GRANDFATHER
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+T&rsquo; watter is blue i&rsquo; t&rsquo; offin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; blue is t&rsquo; sky aboon;<br/>
+Swallows are settin&rsquo; sou&rsquo;ard,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; wanin&rsquo; is t&rsquo; harvist moon.<br/>
+Ower lang I&rsquo;ve bin cowerin&rsquo; idle<br/>
+    I&rsquo; my neuk by t&rsquo; fire-side;<br/>
+I&rsquo;ll away yance mair i&rsquo; my coble,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ll away wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; ebbin&rsquo; tide.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+MALLY
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Nay, Gransir, thoo moant gan sailin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    Thoo mun bide at yam to-neet;<br/>
+At eighty-two thoo sudn&rsquo;t think<br/>
+    O&rsquo; t&rsquo; Whitby fishin&rsquo; fleet.<br/>
+North cone&rsquo;s up on t&rsquo; flagstaff,<br/>
+    There&rsquo;s a cap-full o&rsquo; wind i&rsquo; t&rsquo; bay;<br/>
+T&rsquo; waves wap loud on t&rsquo; harbour bar,<br/>
+    Thoo can hardlins fish to-day.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+GRANDFATHER
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+It&rsquo;s leansome here i&rsquo; t&rsquo; hoose, lass,<br/>
+    When t&rsquo; fisher-folk&rsquo;s at sea,<br/>
+Watchin&rsquo; yon eldin<a href="#fn-70" name="fnref-70" id="fnref-70"><sup>[1]</sup></a> set i&rsquo; t&rsquo; fire<br/>
+    Bleeze up, dwine doon, an&rsquo; dee.<br/>
+An&rsquo; t&rsquo; sea-gulls they coom flyin&rsquo;<br/>
+    Aboon our red roof-tiles;<br/>
+They call me doon the chimley,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; laugh at other whiles.<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s mack&rsquo;rel oot at sea, lad,&rdquo;<br/>
+    Is what I hear &rsquo;em say;<br/>
+&ldquo;Their silver scales are glestrin&rsquo; breet,<br/>
+    Look oot across the bay;<br/>
+But mack&rsquo;rel&rsquo;s not for thee, lad,<br/>
+    For thoo&rsquo;s ower weak to sail.&rdquo;<br/>
+My een wi&rsquo; saut tears daggle<a href="#fn-71" name="fnref-71" id="fnref-71"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/>
+    When I hear their mockin&rsquo; tale.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+MALLY
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Dean&rsquo;t mind their awfish<a href="#fn-72" name="fnref-72" id="fnref-72"><sup>[3]</sup></a> skreekin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    They &rsquo;tice folk to their death;<br/>
+Then ride aboon yon billows<br/>
+    An&rsquo; gloor at them beneath.<br/>
+They gloor at eenless corpses<br/>
+    Slow driftin&rsquo; wi&rsquo; the tide,<br/>
+Deep doon amang the weedy wrack,<br/>
+    Wheer t&rsquo; scaly fishes glide.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+GRANDFATHER
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+I&rsquo;d fain lig wi&rsquo; my kinsfolk,<br/>
+    Fore-elders, brothers, sons,<br/>
+Wheer t&rsquo; star-fish shine like twinklin&rsquo; leets,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; t&rsquo; spring-tide watter runs.<br/>
+T&rsquo; kirkyard&rsquo;s good for farm-folk,<br/>
+    That ploo an&rsquo; milk their kye,<br/>
+But I could sleep maist soondly<br/>
+    Wheer t&rsquo; ships gan sailin&rsquo; by.<br/>
+<br/>
+T&rsquo; grave is whisht<a href="#fn-73" name="fnref-73" id="fnref-73"><sup>[4]</sup></a> an&rsquo; foulsome,<br/>
+    But clean is t&rsquo; saut sea-bed;<br/>
+Thoo can hark to t&rsquo; billows dancin&rsquo;<br/>
+    To t&rsquo; tune o&rsquo; t&rsquo; tide owerhead.<br/>
+Yon wreaths o&rsquo; floors i&rsquo; t&rsquo; kirkyard<br/>
+    Sean wither an&rsquo; fade away,<br/>
+But t&rsquo; sea-tang wreaths round a droon&rsquo;d man&rsquo;s head<br/>
+    Will bide while Judgment Day.<br/>
+<br/>
+Sae fettle<a href="#fn-74" name="fnref-74" id="fnref-74"><sup>[5]</sup></a> my owd blue coble,<br/>
+    I kessen&rsquo;d her &ldquo;Mornin&rsquo; Star,&rdquo;<br/>
+An&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll away through t&rsquo; offin&rsquo;<br/>
+    Wheer t&rsquo; skooals o&rsquo; mack&rsquo;rel are.<br/>
+Thoo can look for my boat i&rsquo; t&rsquo; harbour,<br/>
+    When thoo&rsquo;s said thy mornin&rsquo; psalm;<br/>
+Mebbe I&rsquo;ll fill my fish-creel full&mdash;<br/>
+    Mebbe I&rsquo;ll nean coom yam.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-70" id="fn-70"></a> <a href="#fnref-70">[1]</a>
+Kindling.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-71" id="fn-71"></a> <a href="#fnref-71">[2]</a>
+Grow moist.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-72" id="fn-72"></a> <a href="#fnref-72">[3]</a>
+Elfish.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-73" id="fn-73"></a> <a href="#fnref-73">[4]</a>
+Silent.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-74" id="fn-74"></a> <a href="#fnref-74">[5]</a>
+Get ready.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>One Year Older</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:<br/>
+    That&rsquo;s what I sal awlus say.<br/>
+Draw thy chair a little nearer,<br/>
+    Put yon stockin&rsquo;s reight away.<br/>
+Thou hast done enough i&rsquo; thy time,<br/>
+    Tewed i&rsquo; t&rsquo; house an&rsquo; wrowt at loom;<br/>
+Just for once thou mun sit idle,<br/>
+    Feet on t&rsquo; hear&rsquo;stone, fingers toom.<a href="#fn-75" name="fnref-75" id="fnref-75"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/>
+<br/>
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:<br/>
+    So I promised when we wed.<br/>
+Then thy een were glest&rsquo;rin&rsquo; clearer<br/>
+    Nor the stars aboon us spread.<br/>
+If they&rsquo;re dimmer now, they&rsquo;re tend&rsquo;rer,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; yon wrinkles on thy face<br/>
+Tell a lesson true as t&rsquo; Bible,<br/>
+    Speik o&rsquo; charity an&rsquo; grace.<br/>
+<br/>
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:<br/>
+    We&rsquo;ve supped sorrow, tasted joy,<br/>
+But our love has grown sincerer,<br/>
+    Gethered strength nowt can destroy.<br/>
+Love is like an oak i&rsquo; t&rsquo; forest,<br/>
+    Ivery yeer it adds a ring;<br/>
+Love is like yon ivin tendrils,<br/>
+    Ivery day they closer cling.<br/>
+<br/>
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:<br/>
+    Time&rsquo;s the shuttle, life&rsquo;s the yarn.<br/>
+Have thy crosses seemed severer<br/>
+    &rsquo;Cause thou niver had a barn?<br/>
+Mebbe I sud not have loved thee<br/>
+    Hauf so weel, if I mud share<br/>
+All our secret thowts wi&rsquo; childer,<br/>
+    Twinin&rsquo; round my owd arm-chair.<br/>
+<br/>
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:<br/>
+    &rsquo;Tis our gowden weddin&rsquo; day.<br/>
+There sal coom no gaumless fleerer<br/>
+    To break in upon our play.<br/>
+Look, I&rsquo;ve stecked<a href="#fn-76" name="fnref-76" id="fnref-76"><sup>[2]</sup></a> wer door and window<br/>
+    Let me lap thee i&rsquo; my arms;<br/>
+Hushed to-neet be ivery murmur,<br/>
+    While my kiss thy pale face warms.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-75" id="fn-75"></a> <a href="#fnref-75">[1]</a>
+Empty.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-76" id="fn-76"></a> <a href="#fnref-76">[2]</a>
+Latched.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>The Hungry Forties</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Thou wants my vote, young man wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; carpet-bags,<br/>
+    Weel, sit thee down, an&rsquo; hark what I&rsquo;ve to say.<br/>
+It&rsquo;s noan so varry oft wer kitchen flags<br/>
+    Are mucked by real live lords down Yelland<a href="#fn-77" name="fnref-77" id="fnref-77"><sup>[1]</sup></a> way.<br/>
+<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve read thy speyks i&rsquo; t&rsquo; paper of a neet,<br/>
+    Thou lets a vast o&rsquo; words flow off thy tongue;<br/>
+Thou&rsquo;s gotten facts an&rsquo; figures, plain as t&rsquo; leet,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; argiments to slocken<a href="#fn-78" name="fnref-78" id="fnref-78"><sup>[2]</sup></a> owd an&rsquo; young.<br/>
+<br/>
+But what are facts an&rsquo; figures &rsquo;side o&rsquo; truths<br/>
+    We&rsquo;ve bowt wi&rsquo; childer&rsquo; tears an&rsquo; brokken
+lives?<br/>
+An&rsquo; what are argiments o&rsquo; cockered youths<br/>
+    To set agean yon groans o&rsquo; caitiff<a href="#fn-79" name="fnref-79" id="fnref-79"><sup>[3]</sup></a> wives?<br/>
+<br/>
+&rsquo;Twere &ldquo;hungry forties&rdquo; when I were a lad,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; fowks were clemmed, an&rsquo; weak i&rsquo; t&rsquo; airm
+an&rsquo; brain;<br/>
+We lived on demick&rsquo;d<a href="#fn-80" name="fnref-80" id="fnref-80"><sup>[4]</sup></a> taties, bread gone sad,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; wakkened up o&rsquo; neets croodled<a href="#fn-81" name="fnref-81" id="fnref-81"><sup>[5]</sup></a> wi&rsquo; pain.<br/>
+<br/>
+When t&rsquo; quartern loaf were raised to one and four,<br/>
+    We&rsquo;d watter-brewis, swedes stown out o&rsquo; t&rsquo; field;<br/>
+Farmers were t&rsquo; landlords&rsquo; jackals, an&rsquo; us poor<br/>
+    Tewed in Egyptian bondage unrepealed.<br/>
+<br/>
+I mind them times when lads marched down our street<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; penny loaves on pikes all steeped i&rsquo; blooid;<br/>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s breead or blooid,&rdquo; they cried. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve nowt
+to eat;<br/>
+    To Hell wi&rsquo; all that taxes t&rsquo; people&rsquo;s fooid.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+There was a papist duke<a href="#fn-82" name="fnref-82" id="fnref-82"><sup>[6]</sup></a> that com aleng<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; curry powders, an&rsquo; he telled our boss<br/>
+That when fowk&rsquo;s bellies felt pination&rsquo;s teng,<a href="#fn-83" name="fnref-83" id="fnref-83"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/>
+    For breead, yon stinkin&rsquo; powders they mun soss.<a href="#fn-84" name="fnref-84" id="fnref-84"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/>
+<br/>
+I went to wark when I were eight yeer owd;<br/>
+    I tended galloways an&rsquo; sammed up coils.<br/>
+&rsquo;Twere warm i&rsquo; t&rsquo; pit, aboon &rsquo;t were despert cowd,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; clothes were nobbut spetches,<a href="#fn-85" name="fnref-85" id="fnref-85"><sup>[9]</sup></a> darns an&rsquo; hoils.<br/>
+<br/>
+Thro&rsquo; six to eight I worked, then two mile walk<br/>
+    Across yon sumpy<a href="#fn-86" name="fnref-86" id="fnref-86"><sup>[10]</sup></a> fields to t&rsquo; kitchen door.<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve often fainted, face as white as chalk,<br/>
+    Then fall&rsquo;n lang-length upon wer cobble-floor.<br/>
+<br/>
+My mother addled seven and six a week,<br/>
+    Slavin&rsquo; all t&rsquo; day at Akeroyd&rsquo;s weyvin&rsquo;-shed:<br/>
+Fayther at t&rsquo; grunstone wrowt, while he fell sick;<br/>
+    Steel filin&rsquo;s gate intul his lungs, he said.<br/>
+<br/>
+I come thee then no thank for all thy speyks,<br/>
+    Thou might as weel have spared thisen thy pains;<br/>
+I see no call to laik at ducks an&rsquo; drakes<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; bitter truth that&rsquo;s burnt intul our brains.<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Corn laws be damned,&rdquo; said dad i&rsquo; forty-eight;<br/>
+    &ldquo;Corn laws be damned,&rdquo; say I i&rsquo; nineteen-five.<br/>
+Tariff reform, choose, how, will have to wait<br/>
+    Down Yelland way, so lang as I&rsquo;m alive.<br/>
+<br/>
+If thou an&rsquo; thine sud tax us workers&rsquo; fooid,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; thrust us back in our owd misery,<br/>
+May t&rsquo; tears o&rsquo; our deead childer thin thy blooid,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; t&rsquo; curse o&rsquo; t&rsquo; &ldquo;hungry forties&rdquo;
+leet on thee.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-77" id="fn-77"></a> <a href="#fnref-77">[1]</a>
+Elland.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-78" id="fn-78"></a> <a href="#fnref-78">[2]</a>
+Satiate.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-79" id="fn-79"></a> <a href="#fnref-79">[3]</a>
+Infirm.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-80" id="fn-80"></a> <a href="#fnref-80">[4]</a>
+Diseased.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-81" id="fn-81"></a> <a href="#fnref-81">[5]</a>
+Bent double.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-82" id="fn-82"></a> <a href="#fnref-82">[6]</a>
+Duke of Norfolk.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-83" id="fn-83"></a> <a href="#fnref-83">[7]</a>
+Sting.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-84" id="fn-84"></a> <a href="#fnref-84">[8]</a>
+Sip.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-85" id="fn-85"></a> <a href="#fnref-85">[9]</a>
+Patches.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-86" id="fn-86"></a> <a href="#fnref-86">[10]</a>
+Swampy.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>The Flowers of Knaresborough Forest</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+But now they are moaning, on ilka green loaning<br/>
+The Flowers of the Forest are a&rsquo; wede away.<br/>
+<i>Jane Elliot</i> (1727-1805).
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+O! day-time is weary, an&rsquo; dark o&rsquo; dusk dreary<br/>
+    For t&rsquo; lasses i&rsquo; t&rsquo; mistal, or rakin&rsquo; ower t&rsquo;
+hay;<br/>
+When t&rsquo; kye coom for strippin&rsquo;, or t&rsquo; yowes for their
+clippin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    We think on our sowdiers now gone reet away.<br/>
+<br/>
+The courtin&rsquo;-gate&rsquo;s idle, nae lad flings his bridle<br/>
+    Ower t&rsquo; yak-stoup,<a href="#fn-87" name="fnref-87" id="fnref-87"><sup>[1]</sup></a> an&rsquo; sleely cooms seekin&rsquo; his
+may;<br/>
+The trod by the river is green as a sliver,<a href="#fn-88" name="fnref-88" id="fnref-88"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/>
+    For the Flowers o&rsquo; the Forest have all stown away.<br/>
+<br/>
+At Marti&rsquo;mas hirin&rsquo;s, nae ribbins, nae tirin&rsquo;s,<br/>
+    When t&rsquo; godspenny&rsquo;s<a href="#fn-89" name="fnref-89" id="fnref-89"><sup>[3]</sup></a> addled, an&rsquo; t&rsquo; time&rsquo;s
+coom for play;<br/>
+Nae Cheap-Jacks, nae dancin&rsquo;, wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; teamster&rsquo; clogs
+prancin ,<br/>
+    The Flowers o&rsquo; the Forest are all flown a way.<br/>
+<br/>
+When at neet church is lowsin&rsquo;, an&rsquo; t&rsquo; owd ullet is
+rousin&rsquo;<br/>
+    Hissel i&rsquo; our laithe,<a href="#fn-90" name="fnref-90" id="fnref-90"><sup>[4]</sup></a> wheer he&rsquo;s slummered all t&rsquo;
+day,<br/>
+Wae&rsquo;s t&rsquo; heart! but we misses our lads&rsquo; saftest kisses,<br/>
+    Now the Flowers o&rsquo; the Forest are gone reet away.<br/>
+<br/>
+Ploo-lads frae Pannal have crossed ower the Channel,<br/>
+    Shipperds frae Fewston have taen the King&rsquo;s pay,<br/>
+Thackrays frae Dacre have sold ivery acre;<br/>
+    Thou&rsquo;ll finnd ne&rsquo;er a delver<a href="#fn-91" name="fnref-91" id="fnref-91"><sup>[5]</sup></a> frae Haverah to Bray.<br/>
+<br/>
+When t&rsquo; north wind is howlin&rsquo;, an&rsquo; t&rsquo; west wind is
+yowlin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    It&rsquo;s for t&rsquo; farm lads at sea that us lasses mun pray;<br/>
+Tassey-Will o&rsquo; t&rsquo; new biggin, keepin&rsquo; watch i&rsquo; his
+riggin ,<br/>
+    Lile Jock i&rsquo; his fo&rsquo;c&rsquo;sle, torpedoed i&rsquo; t&rsquo;
+bay.<br/>
+<br/>
+Mony a lass now is weepin&rsquo; for her marrow that&rsquo;s
+sleepin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; nae bield for his corp but the cowd Flanthers clay;<br/>
+He&rsquo;ll ne&rsquo;er lift his limmers,<a href="#fn-92" name="fnref-92" id="fnref-92"><sup>[6]</sup></a> he&rsquo;ll ne&rsquo;er wean his
+gimmers<a href="#fn-93" name="fnref-93" id="fnref-93"><sup>[7]</sup></a>:<br/>
+    Ay, there&rsquo;s Flowers o&rsquo; the Forest are withered away.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-87" id="fn-87"></a> <a href="#fnref-87">[1]</a>
+Oak-post.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-88" id="fn-88"></a> <a href="#fnref-88">[2]</a>
+Branch of a leafing tree.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-89" id="fn-89"></a> <a href="#fnref-89">[3]</a>
+Earnest money.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-90" id="fn-90"></a> <a href="#fnref-90">[4]</a>
+Barn.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-91" id="fn-91"></a> <a href="#fnref-91">[5]</a>
+Quarryman.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-92" id="fn-92"></a> <a href="#fnref-92">[6]</a>
+Wagon-shafts.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-93" id="fn-93"></a> <a href="#fnref-93">[7]</a>
+Ewe lambs.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>The Miller by the Shore<br/>
+an East Coast Chanty</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The miller by the shore am I,<br/>
+    A man o&rsquo; despert sense;<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve fotty different soorts o&rsquo; ways<br/>
+    O&rsquo; addlin&rsquo; honest pence.<br/>
+Good wheat and wuts and barley-corns<br/>
+    My mill grinds all t&rsquo; day lang ;<br/>
+Frae faave &rsquo;o t&rsquo; morn while seven o&rsquo; t&rsquo; neet<br/>
+    My days are varra thrang.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Chorus
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+I mill a bit, I till a bit,<br/>
+    I dee all maks &rsquo;o jobs,<br/>
+Frae followin&rsquo; ploos and hollowin&rsquo; coos<br/>
+    To mendin&rsquo; chairs and squabs.<a href="#fn-94" name="fnref-94" id="fnref-94"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/>
+Oh! folks they laugh and girn at me,<br/>
+    I niver tak it ill;<br/>
+If I&rsquo;s the Jack &rsquo;o ivery trade,<br/>
+    They all bring grist to t&rsquo; mill.<br/>
+<br/>
+I tend my hunderd yakker farm,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; milk my Kyloe kye.<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve Lincoln yowes an&rsquo; Leicester tups<br/>
+    An&rsquo; twenty head &rsquo;o wye.<a href="#fn-95" name="fnref-95" id="fnref-95"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/>
+I&rsquo;ve stirks to tak to Scarbro&rsquo; mart,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ve meers for farmers&rsquo; gigs;<br/>
+And oh! I wish that you could see<br/>
+    My laatle sookin&rsquo; pigs.<br/>
+<br/>
+I mill a bit. ...<br/>
+<br/>
+When summer days graws lang an&rsquo; breet,<br/>
+    Oot cooms my &ldquo;Noah&rsquo;s Arks,&rdquo;<br/>
+Wheer city folk undriss theirsels<br/>
+    An&rsquo; don my bathin&rsquo; sarks.<a href="#fn-96" name="fnref-96" id="fnref-96"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/>
+An&rsquo; when they git on land agean,<br/>
+    I rub&rsquo; em smooth as silk;<br/>
+Then bring&rsquo; em oot, to fill their weeams,<br/>
+    My parkin ceakes an&rsquo; milk.<br/>
+<br/>
+I mill a bit. ...<br/>
+<br/>
+I pike<a href="#fn-97" name="fnref-97" id="fnref-97"><sup>[4]</sup></a> stray timmer on the shore,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; cuvins<a href="#fn-98" name="fnref-98" id="fnref-98"><sup>[5]</sup></a> on the scar;<br/>
+I know wheer crabs &rsquo;ll hugger up,<a href="#fn-99" name="fnref-99" id="fnref-99"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/>
+    I know wheer t&rsquo; lobsters are.<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve cobles fishin&rsquo; oot i&rsquo; t&rsquo; bay,<br/>
+    For whitings, dabs and cods,<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve herrin&rsquo; trawls and salmon nets,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ve hooks and lines and rods.<br/>
+<br/>
+I mill a bit. ...<br/>
+<br/>
+On darksome neets, back-end &rsquo;o t&rsquo; yeer,<br/>
+    I like another sport;<br/>
+I row my boat wheer t&rsquo; lugger lies,<br/>
+    Coom frae some foreign port;<br/>
+A guinea in a coastguard&rsquo;s poke<br/>
+    Will mak him steck his een ;<br/>
+So he says nowt when I coom yam<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; scent and saccharine.<br/>
+<br/>
+I mill a bit. ...
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-94" id="fn-94"></a> <a href="#fnref-94">[1]</a>
+Settles.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-95" id="fn-95"></a> <a href="#fnref-95">[2]</a>
+Heifers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-96" id="fn-96"></a> <a href="#fnref-96">[3]</a>
+Shirts.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-97" id="fn-97"></a> <a href="#fnref-97">[4]</a>
+Pick up.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-98" id="fn-98"></a> <a href="#fnref-98">[5]</a>
+Periwinkles.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-99" id="fn-99"></a> <a href="#fnref-99">[6]</a>
+Crowd together.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>The Bride&rsquo;s Homecoming</h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+        A weddin&rsquo;, a woo,<br/>
+        A clog an&rsquo; a shoe,<br/>
+A pot full o&rsquo; porridge; away we go!<br/>
+            <i>A Yorkshire Wedding-Rhyme</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Thoo mun hod on tight, my darlin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    We&rsquo;ve mony a beck to cross;<br/>
+Twix&rsquo; thy father&rsquo;s hoose an&rsquo; mine, love,<br/>
+    There&rsquo;s a vast o&rsquo; slacks an&rsquo; moss.<br/>
+But t&rsquo; awd mare, shoo weant whemmle<a href="#fn-100" name="fnref-100" id="fnref-100"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/>
+    Though there&rsquo;s twee on her back astride;<br/>
+Shoo&rsquo;s as prood as me, is Snowball,<br/>
+    Noo I&rsquo;s fetchin&rsquo; heame my bride.<br/>
+        A weddin&rsquo;, a woo,<br/>
+        A clog an&rsquo; a shoe,<br/>
+A pot full o&rsquo; porridge; away we go!<br/>
+<br/>
+Gow! but I feel sae leetsome,<br/>
+    Sin I&rsquo;ve lived to see this day;<br/>
+My heart is like a blackbod&rsquo;s<br/>
+    Efter a shoor i&rsquo; May.<br/>
+I&rsquo; t&rsquo; sky aboon nea lairock<br/>
+    Has sae mich reet to sing<br/>
+As I have, noo I&rsquo;ve wedded<br/>
+    T&rsquo; lile lass o&rsquo; Fulsa Ing.<br/>
+        A weddin&rsquo;, a woo,<br/>
+        A clog an&rsquo; a shoe,<br/>
+A pot full o&rsquo; porridge; away we go!<br/>
+<br/>
+Does ta hear yon watter bubblin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    Deep doon i&rsquo; t&rsquo; moorland streams?<br/>
+It soonds like childer&rsquo; voices<br/>
+    When they&rsquo;re laughin&rsquo; i&rsquo; their dreams.<br/>
+An&rsquo; look at yon lang-tailed pyots,<a href="#fn-101" name="fnref-101" id="fnref-101"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/>
+    There s three on &rsquo;em, I&rsquo;ll uphod!<br/>
+Folks say that three&rsquo;s for a weddin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    Ay, a pyot&rsquo;s a canny bod.<br/>
+        A weddin&rsquo;, a woo,<br/>
+        A clog an&rsquo; a shoe,<br/>
+A pot full o&rsquo; porridge; away we go!<br/>
+<br/>
+I love to feel thee clingin&rsquo;<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; thy hands aroond my breast;<br/>
+Thy bosom&rsquo;s leetly heavin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    Like a ship on t&rsquo; saut waves&rsquo; crest.<br/>
+An&rsquo; thy breath is sweet as t&rsquo; breezes,<br/>
+    That cooms ower t&rsquo; soothern hills,<br/>
+When t&rsquo; violet blaws i&rsquo; t&rsquo; springtime<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; yollow daffydills.<br/>
+        A weddin&rsquo;, a woo,<br/>
+        A clog an&rsquo; a shoe,<br/>
+A pot full o&rsquo; porridge; away we go!<br/>
+<br/>
+Is ta gittin&rsquo; tired, my honey,<br/>
+    We&rsquo;ll be heame i&rsquo; hafe an hour;<br/>
+Thoo&rsquo;ll see our hoose an&rsquo; staggarth,<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; birk-trees bendin&rsquo; ower.<br/>
+There&rsquo;s a lillilow<a href="#fn-102" name="fnref-102" id="fnref-102"><sup>[3]</sup></a> i&rsquo; our cham&rsquo;er<br/>
+    To welcome my viewly bride ;<br/>
+An&rsquo; sean we&rsquo;ll be theer oorsels, lass,<br/>
+    Liggin&rsquo; cosy side by side.<br/>
+        A weddin&rsquo;, a woo,<br/>
+        A clog an&rsquo; a shoe,<br/>
+A pot full o&rsquo; porridge; away we go!
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-100" id="fn-100"></a> <a href="#fnref-100">[1]</a>
+Stumble.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-101" id="fn-101"></a> <a href="#fnref-101">[2]</a>
+Magpies.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-102" id="fn-102"></a> <a href="#fnref-102">[3]</a>
+Light.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>The Artist</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Lang-haired gauvies<a href="#fn-103" name="fnref-103" id="fnref-103"><sup>[1]</sup></a> coom my way, drawin&rsquo; t&rsquo; owd abbey an&rsquo;
+brig,<br/>
+    All their crack is o&rsquo; Art-staities an&rsquo; picturs an&rsquo;
+paints;<br/>
+Want to put me on their canvas, donned i&rsquo; my farmer&rsquo;s rig,<br/>
+    Tell me I&rsquo;m pairt o&rsquo; t&rsquo; scenery, stained-glass windeys
+an&rsquo; saints.<br/>
+<br/>
+I reckon I&rsquo;m artist an&rsquo; all, though I niver gave it a thowt;<br/>
+    Breeder o&rsquo; stock is my trade, Mike Pullan o&rsquo; t&rsquo; Abbey
+Close.<br/>
+What sud a farmer want wi&rsquo; picturs that brass has bowt?<br/>
+    All his art is i&rsquo; t&rsquo; mistal, wheer t&rsquo; heifers are ranged
+i&rsquo; rows.<br/>
+<br/>
+Look at yon pedigree bull, wi&rsquo; an eye as breet as a star,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; a coat that shines like velvet, when it catches t&rsquo; glent
+o&rsquo; t&rsquo; sun;<br/>
+Hark to him bealin&rsquo; for t&rsquo; cows, wi&rsquo; a voice like t&rsquo;
+thunner on t&rsquo; scar,<br/>
+    Watch them sinews i&rsquo; t&rsquo; neck, ripplin&rsquo; wi&rsquo; mischief
+an&rsquo; fun.<br/>
+<br/>
+Three generations o&rsquo; men have lived their lives for yon bull,<br/>
+    Tewed at his keep all t&rsquo; day, dreamed o&rsquo; his sleekness all
+t&rsquo; neet;<br/>
+Moulded the bugth o&rsquo; his buttocks, fashioned the breadth o&rsquo; his
+skull&mdash;<br/>
+    Ivery one on &rsquo;em artists, sculptors o&rsquo; butcher&rsquo;s meat.<br/>
+<br/>
+What are your Rubens and Vandykes anent the craft that is Breed?<br/>
+    Anent the art that is Life, what&rsquo;s figures o&rsquo; bronze or
+stone?<br/>
+Us farmers &rsquo;ll mould you models, better nor statties that&rsquo;s
+deead&mdash;<br/>
+    Strength that is wick i&rsquo; the flesh, Beauty that&rsquo;s bred i&rsquo;
+the bone.<br/>
+<br/>
+Bailiff&rsquo;s doughter at t&rsquo; Hollins, shoo&rsquo;s Breed, an&rsquo;
+shoo&rsquo;s Life, an shoo&rsquo;s Art,<br/>
+    Bred frae a Westmorland statesman out o&rsquo; a Craven lass;<br/>
+Carries hersen like a queen when shoo drives to markit i&rsquo; t&rsquo;
+cart:<br/>
+    Noan o&rsquo; yon scraumy-legged<a href="#fn-104" name="fnref-104" id="fnref-104"><sup>[2]</sup></a> painters sal iver git howd o&rsquo; her
+brass.<br/>
+<br/>
+Picturs is reight enough for fowks cluttered up i&rsquo; Leeds,<br/>
+    Fowks that have ne&rsquo;er hannled beasts, can&rsquo;t tell a tup frae a
+yowe ;<br/>
+But the art for coontry lads is the art that breathes an&rsquo; feeds,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; t&rsquo; finest gallery i&rsquo; t&rsquo; worrld is a Yorkshire
+cattle-show.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-103" id="fn-103"></a> <a href="#fnref-103">[1]</a>
+Simpletons.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-104" id="fn-104"></a> <a href="#fnref-104">[2]</a>
+Spindle-legged.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>Marra to Bonney</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+What would you do wi&rsquo; a doughter&mdash;<br/>
+    Pray wi&rsquo; her, bensil<a href="#fn-105" name="fnref-105" id="fnref-105"><sup>[1]</sup></a> her, flout her?&mdash;<br/>
+Say, what would you do wi&rsquo; a daughter<br/>
+    That&rsquo;s marra to Bonney<a href="#fn-106" name="fnref-106" id="fnref-106"><sup>[2]</sup></a> hissen?<br/>
+<br/>
+I prayed wi&rsquo; her first, of a Sunday,<br/>
+    When chapil was lowsin&rsquo; for t&rsquo; neet;<br/>
+An&rsquo; I laid all her cockaloft marlocks<a href="#fn-107" name="fnref-107" id="fnref-107"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/>
+    &rsquo;Fore th&rsquo; Almighty&rsquo;s mercy-seat.<br/>
+When I looked for her tears o&rsquo; repentance,<br/>
+    I jaloused<a href="#fn-108" name="fnref-108" id="fnref-108"><sup>[4]</sup></a> that I saw her laugh;<br/>
+An&rsquo; she said that t&rsquo; Powers o&rsquo; Justice<br/>
+    Would scatter my words like chaff.<br/>
+<br/>
+Then I bensilled her hard in her cham&rsquo;er,<br/>
+    As I bensils owd Neddy i&rsquo; t&rsquo; cart.<br/>
+If prayers willent teach thee, my dolly,<br/>
+    Happen whip-stock will mak thy tears start.<br/>
+But she stood there as chuff as a mawmet,<a href="#fn-109" name="fnref-109" id="fnref-109"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/>
+    Not one chunt&rsquo;rin<a href="#fn-110" name="fnref-110" id="fnref-110"><sup>[6]</sup></a> word did she say:<br/>
+But she hoped that t&rsquo; blooid o&rsquo; t&rsquo; martyrs<br/>
+    Would waish all my sins away.<br/>
+<br/>
+Then I thought, mebbe floutin&rsquo; will mend her;<br/>
+    So I watched while she cam out o&rsquo; t&rsquo; mill,<br/>
+And afore all yon Wyke lads an&rsquo; lasses<br/>
+    I fleered at her reight up our hill.<br/>
+She winced when she heeard all their girnin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    Then she whispered, a sob i&rsquo; her throat:<br/>
+&ldquo;I reckon I&rsquo;ll noan think o&rsquo; weddin&rsquo;<br/>
+    While women are given their vote.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+What would you do wi&rsquo; a doughter&mdash;<br/>
+    Pray wi&rsquo; her, bensil her, flout her?&mdash;<br/>
+Say, what would you do wi&rsquo; a daughter<br/>
+    That&rsquo;s marra to Bonney hissen?
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-105" id="fn-105"></a> <a href="#fnref-105">[1]</a>
+Beat.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-106" id="fn-106"></a> <a href="#fnref-106">[2]</a>
+A match for Bonaparte.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-107" id="fn-107"></a> <a href="#fnref-107">[3]</a>
+Conceited tricks.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-108" id="fn-108"></a> <a href="#fnref-108">[4]</a>
+Suspected.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-109" id="fn-109"></a> <a href="#fnref-109">[5]</a>
+As proud as an idol.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-110" id="fn-110"></a> <a href="#fnref-110">[6]</a>
+Grumbling.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>Mary Mecca</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Mary Mecca,<a href="#fn-111" name="fnref-111" id="fnref-111"><sup>[1]</sup></a> Mary Mecca,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;m fain to see thee here,<br/>
+A Devon lass to fill my glass<br/>
+    O&rsquo; home-brewed Yorkshire beer.<br/>
+I awlus said that foreigners<br/>
+    Sud niver mel on me;<br/>
+But sike a viewly face as thine<br/>
+    I&rsquo;d travel far to see.<br/>
+<br/>
+Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,<br/>
+    I&rsquo;m sad to see thee here,<br/>
+Wheer t&rsquo; wind blaws hask<a href="#fn-112" name="fnref-112" id="fnref-112"><sup>[2]</sup></a> frae Norway<br/>
+    I&rsquo; t&rsquo; spring-time o&rsquo; the year.<br/>
+I&rsquo;d liever finnd thee sittin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; a bowl o&rsquo; cruds an&rsquo; cream,<br/>
+Wheer t&rsquo; foxglove bells ring through the dells,<br/>
+    Anent a Dartmoor stream.<br/>
+<br/>
+Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,<br/>
+    The way thou snods thy hair,<br/>
+It maks my heart go dancin&rsquo;<br/>
+    Like winnlestraws<a href="#fn-113" name="fnref-113" id="fnref-113"><sup>[3]</sup></a> i&rsquo; t&rsquo; air.<br/>
+One neet I heard thee singin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    As I cam home frae toon;<br/>
+&rsquo;Twas sweet as curlews makkin&rsquo; love<br/>
+    Agean a risin&rsquo; moon.<br/>
+<br/>
+Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,<br/>
+    I dream o&rsquo; thy gray een;<br/>
+I think on all I&rsquo;ve wasted,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; what I might hae been.<br/>
+I&rsquo;m nowt but muck off t&rsquo; midden,<br/>
+    So all I axe is this:<br/>
+Just blaw the froth from off my yal<a href="#fn-114" name="fnref-114" id="fnref-114"><sup>[4]</sup></a>;<br/>
+    &rsquo;Twill seem most like a kiss.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-111" id="fn-111"></a> <a href="#fnref-111">[1]</a>
+Metcalfe.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-112" id="fn-112"></a> <a href="#fnref-112">[2]</a>
+Keenly.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-113" id="fn-113"></a> <a href="#fnref-113">[3]</a>
+Whisps of grass or straw.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-114" id="fn-114"></a> <a href="#fnref-114">[4]</a>
+Ale.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>The Local Preacher</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ay, I&rsquo;m a ranter, so at least fowks say;<br/>
+    Happen they&rsquo;d tell t&rsquo; same tale o&rsquo; t&rsquo; postle
+Paul.<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve ranted fifty yeer, coom first o&rsquo; May,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; niver changed my gospil through &rsquo;em all.<br/>
+<br/>
+There&rsquo;s nowt like t&rsquo; Blooid o&rsquo; t&rsquo; Lamb an&rsquo;
+t&rsquo; Fire o&rsquo; Hell<br/>
+    To bring a hardened taistril<a href="#fn-115" name="fnref-115" id="fnref-115"><sup>[1]</sup></a> to his knees;<br/>
+If fowks want more nor that, then thou can tell<br/>
+    &rsquo;Em straight, I&rsquo;ve got no cure for their disease.<br/>
+<br/>
+I willent thole this New Theology<br/>
+    That blends up Hell wi&rsquo; Heaven, sinners wi&rsquo; saints<br/>
+For black was black when I turned Methody,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; white was white, i&rsquo; souls as weel as paints.<br/>
+<br/>
+That&rsquo;s awlus t&rsquo; warp an&rsquo; t&rsquo; weft o&rsquo; my
+discourse,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; awlus will be, lang as I can teach;<br/>
+If fowks won&rsquo;t harken tul it, then, of course,<br/>
+    They go to church and hear t&rsquo; owd parson preach.<br/>
+<br/>
+His sarmon&rsquo;s like his baccy, sweet an&rsquo; mild;<br/>
+    Fowk&rsquo;s ommost hauf asleep at t&rsquo; second word.<br/>
+By t&rsquo; Mass! they&rsquo;re wick as lops,<a href="#fn-116" name="fnref-116" id="fnref-116"><sup>[2]</sup></a> ay, man an&rsquo; child,<br/>
+    When I stan&rsquo; up an&rsquo; wrastle wi&rsquo; the Lord.<br/>
+<br/>
+Nay, I&rsquo;m not blamin&rsquo; parson, I&rsquo;ll awant<a href="#fn-117" name="fnref-117" id="fnref-117"><sup>[3]</sup></a>;<br/>
+    Preachin&rsquo;s his trade, same way as millin&rsquo;s mine.<br/>
+I&rsquo; trade you&rsquo;ve got to gie fowks what they want,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; that is mostly sawcum<a href="#fn-118" name="fnref-118" id="fnref-118"><sup>[4]</sup></a> meshed reet fine.<br/>
+<br/>
+Tak squire theer; he don&rsquo;t want no talk o&rsquo; Hell,<br/>
+    He likes to hark to t&rsquo; parable o&rsquo; t&rsquo; teares ;<br/>
+He reckons church is wheat that&rsquo;s gooid to sell,<br/>
+    But chapil&rsquo;s nobbut kexes,<a href="#fn-119" name="fnref-119" id="fnref-119"><sup>[5]</sup></a> thorns, an&rsquo; brears.<br/>
+<br/>
+Squire&rsquo;s lasses, they can&rsquo;t do wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; Blooid o&rsquo;
+t&rsquo; Lamb<br/>
+    They&rsquo;re all for t&rsquo; blooid o&rsquo; t&rsquo; foxes, like our
+Bob.<br/>
+The Lord Hissen will have to save or damn<br/>
+    Church fowks wid out me mellin&rsquo; on<a href="#fn-120" name="fnref-120" id="fnref-120"><sup>[6]</sup></a> His job.<br/>
+<br/>
+But gie me chapil lasses gone astray,<br/>
+    Or lads that cooms home druffen of a neet,<br/>
+An&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll raise Cain afore I go away,<br/>
+    If I don&rsquo;t gie &rsquo;em t&rsquo; glent o&rsquo; t&rsquo; Gospil
+leet.<br/>
+<br/>
+I&rsquo;ll mak &rsquo;em sit on t&rsquo; penitential stooils,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; roar as loud as t&rsquo; buzzer down at t&rsquo; mill;<br/>
+I&rsquo;ll mak &rsquo;em own that they&rsquo;ve bin despert fooils,<br/>
+    Wi&rsquo; all their pride o&rsquo; life a bitter pill.<br/>
+<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve mony texts, but all to one point keep,<br/>
+    Same as all t&rsquo; becks flow down to one saut sea:<br/>
+Damnation an&rsquo; salvation, goats an&rsquo; sheep&mdash;<br/>
+    That&rsquo;s t&rsquo; Bible gospil that thou&rsquo;ll get thro&rsquo; me.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-115" id="fn-115"></a> <a href="#fnref-115">[1]</a>
+Reprobate.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-116" id="fn-116"></a> <a href="#fnref-116">[2]</a>
+Lively as fleas.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-117" id="fn-117"></a> <a href="#fnref-117">[3]</a>
+Warrrant.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-118" id="fn-118"></a> <a href="#fnref-118">[4]</a>
+Sawdust.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-119" id="fn-119"></a> <a href="#fnref-119">[5]</a>
+Dried stems of weeds.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-120" id="fn-120"></a> <a href="#fnref-120">[6]</a>
+Meddling with.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>The Courting Gate</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+There&rsquo;s dew upon the meadows,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; bats are wheelin&rsquo; high;<br/>
+The sun has set an hour sin&rsquo;,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; evenin&rsquo; leet&rsquo;s i&rsquo; t&rsquo; sky.<br/>
+Swalows i&rsquo; t&rsquo; thack are sleepin ,<br/>
+    Neet-hawks are swift on t&rsquo; wing,<br/>
+An&rsquo; grey moths gethers honey<br/>
+    Amang the purple ling .<br/>
+        O coom an&rsquo; meet me, Mally,<br/>
+        O coom an&rsquo; greet me, Mally,<br/>
+    Meet me, greet me, at the courtin&rsquo; gate.<br/>
+<br/>
+The fire-leet casts thy shadow<br/>
+    Owerthwart the kitchen wall;<br/>
+It&rsquo;s dancin&rsquo; up an&rsquo; doon, lass,<br/>
+    My heart does dance an&rsquo; all.<br/>
+Three times I&rsquo;ve gien oor love-call<br/>
+    To bring my bird to t&rsquo; nest.<br/>
+When wilt a coom, my throstle,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; shelter on my breast?<br/>
+        O coom an&rsquo; meet me, Mally,<br/>
+        O coom an&rsquo; greet me, Mally,<br/>
+    Meet me, greet me, at the courtin&rsquo; gate.<br/>
+<br/>
+I&rsquo;ve wrowt all t&rsquo; day at t&rsquo; harvist,<br/>
+    But ivery hour seemed sweet,<br/>
+Acause I thowt I&rsquo;d haud thee<br/>
+    Clasped i&rsquo; my airms to-neet.<br/>
+Black Bess she raked aside me<br/>
+    An&rsquo; leuked at me an&rsquo; smiled;<br/>
+I telled her I loved Mally,<br/>
+    It made her despert wild.<br/>
+        O coom an&rsquo; meet me, Mally,<br/>
+        O coom an&rsquo; greet me, Mally,<br/>
+    Meet me, greet me, at the courtin&rsquo; gate.<br/>
+<br/>
+Thy shadow&rsquo;s gone frae t&rsquo; kitchen,<br/>
+    T&rsquo; hoose-door is oppened wide.<br/>
+It&rsquo;s she, my viewly Mally,<br/>
+    The lass I&rsquo;ll mak my bride.<br/>
+White lilies in her garden,<br/>
+    Fling oot your scent i&rsquo; t&rsquo; air,<br/>
+An&rsquo; mingle breath wi&rsquo; t&rsquo; roses<br/>
+    I&rsquo;ve gethered for her hair.<br/>
+        O let me haud thee, Mally,<br/>
+        O let me faud thee, Mally,<br/>
+    Haud thee, faud thee, at the courtin&rsquo; gate.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>Fieldfares</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Fieldfares, bonny fieldfares, feedin&rsquo; &rsquo;mang the bent,<br/>
+Wheer the sun is shinin&rsquo; through yon cloud&rsquo;s wide rent,<br/>
+        Welcoom back to t&rsquo; moorlands,<br/>
+        Frae Norway&rsquo;s fells an&rsquo; shorelands,<br/>
+Welcoom back to Whardill,<a href="#fn-121" name="fnref-121" id="fnref-121"><sup>[1]</sup></a> now October&rsquo;s ommost spent.<br/>
+<br/>
+Noisy, chackin&rsquo; fieldfares, weel I ken your cry,<br/>
+When i&rsquo; flocks you&rsquo;re sweepin&rsquo; ower the hills sae high:<br/>
+        Oft on trees you gethers,<br/>
+        Preenin&rsquo; out your feathers,<br/>
+An&rsquo; I&rsquo;m fain to see your coats as blue as t&rsquo; summer sky.<br/>
+<br/>
+Curlews, larks an&rsquo; tewits,<a href="#fn-122" name="fnref-122" id="fnref-122"><sup>[2]</sup></a> all have gone frae t&rsquo; moors,<br/>
+Frost has nipped i&rsquo; t&rsquo; garden all my bonny floors;<br/>
+        Roses, lilies, pansies,<br/>
+        Stocks an&rsquo; yallow tansies<br/>
+Fade away, an&rsquo; soon the leaves &rsquo;ll clutter<a href="#fn-123" name="fnref-123" id="fnref-123"><sup>[3]</sup></a> doon i&rsquo; shoors.<br/>
+<br/>
+Here i&rsquo; bed I&rsquo;m liggin&rsquo;, liggin&rsquo; day by day<br/>
+Hay-cart whemmled ower,<a href="#fn-124" name="fnref-124" id="fnref-124"><sup>[4]</sup></a> and underneath I lay;<br/>
+        I was nobbut seven,<br/>
+        Soon I&rsquo;ll be eleven;<br/>
+Fower times have I seen you fieldfares coom an&rsquo; flee away.<br/>
+<br/>
+You&rsquo;ll be gone when t&rsquo; swallow bigs his nest o&rsquo; loam,<br/>
+April winds &rsquo;ll blaw you far ower t&rsquo; saut sea foam;<br/>
+        You&rsquo;ll not wait while May-time,<br/>
+        Summer dews an&rsquo; hay-time;<br/>
+Lang afore our gerse is mawn your mates &rsquo;ll call you home.<br/>
+<br/>
+Fieldfares, liltin&rsquo;<a href="#fn-125" name="fnref-125" id="fnref-125"><sup>[5]</sup></a> fieldfares, you&rsquo;ll noan sing to me.<br/>
+Why sud you bide silent while you&rsquo;ve crossed the sea?<br/>
+        Are you brokken-hearted,<br/>
+        Sin frae home you&rsquo;ve parted,<br/>
+Leavin&rsquo; far frae Yorkshire moors your nests i&rsquo; t&rsquo; tall fir
+tree?<br/>
+<br/>
+Storm-cock sings at new-yeer, swingin&rsquo; on yon esh,<br/>
+Sings his loudest song when t&rsquo; winds do beat an&rsquo; lesh;<br/>
+        Robins, throstles follow,<br/>
+        An&rsquo; when cooms the swalloww,<br/>
+All the birds &rsquo;ll chirm to see our woodlands green an&rsquo; nesh.<br/>
+<br/>
+Fieldfares, bonny fieldfares, I&rsquo;ll be gone &rsquo;fore you;<br/>
+        I&rsquo;m sae weak an&rsquo; dowly, hands are thin an&rsquo; blue.<br/>
+        Pain is growin&rsquo; stranger,<br/>
+As the neets get langer.<br/>
+Will you miss my face at whiles, when t&rsquo; owd yeer&rsquo;s changed to
+t&rsquo; new?
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-121" id="fn-121"></a> <a href="#fnref-121">[1]</a>
+Wharfdale.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-122" id="fn-122"></a> <a href="#fnref-122">[2]</a>
+Peewits.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-123" id="fn-123"></a> <a href="#fnref-123">[3]</a>
+Huddle.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-124" id="fn-124"></a> <a href="#fnref-124">[4]</a>
+Upset.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-125" id="fn-125"></a> <a href="#fnref-125">[5]</a>
+Light-hearted.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>A Song of the Yorkshire Dales</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A song I sing o&rsquo; t&rsquo; Yorkshire dales,<br/>
+    That Winnd frae t&rsquo; moors to t&rsquo; sea;<br/>
+Frae t&rsquo; breast o&rsquo; t&rsquo; fells, wheer t&rsquo; cloud-rack
+sails,<br/>
+    Their becks flow merrily.<br/>
+Their banks are breet wi&rsquo; moss an&rsquo; broom,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; sweet is t&rsquo; scent o&rsquo; t&rsquo; thyme;<br/>
+You can hark to t&rsquo; bees&rsquo; saft, dreamy soom<a href="#fn-126" name="fnref-126" id="fnref-126"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/>
+    I&rsquo; t&rsquo; foxglove bells an&rsquo; t&rsquo; lime.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Chorus
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+O! Swawdill&rsquo;s good for horses, an&rsquo; Wensladill for cheese,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; Airedill fowk are busy as a bee;<br/>
+            But wheersoe&rsquo;er I wander,<br/>
+            My owd heart aye grows fonder<br/>
+O Whardill, wheer I&rsquo;ll lig me down an&rsquo; dee.<br/>
+<br/>
+Reet bonny are our dales i&rsquo; March,<br/>
+    When t&rsquo; curlews tak to t&rsquo; moors,<br/>
+There&rsquo;s ruddy buds on ivery larch,<br/>
+    Primroses don their floors.<br/>
+But bonnier yet when t&rsquo; August sun<br/>
+    Leets up yon plats o&rsquo; ling;<br/>
+An&rsquo; gert white fishes lowp an&rsquo; scun,<a href="#fn-127" name="fnref-127" id="fnref-127"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/>
+    Wheer t&rsquo; weirs ower t&rsquo; watter hing.<br/>
+<br/>
+O! Swawdillls good...<br/>
+<br/>
+By ivery beck an abbey sleeps,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; t&rsquo; ullet is t&rsquo; owd prior.<br/>
+A jackdaw thruf each windey peeps,<br/>
+    An&rsquo; bigs his nest i&rsquo; t&rsquo; choir.<br/>
+In ivery dale a castle stands&mdash;<br/>
+    Sing, Clifford, Percy, Scrope!&mdash;<br/>
+They threaped amang theirsels for t&rsquo; lands,<br/>
+    But fowt for t&rsquo; King or t&rsquo; Pope.<br/>
+<br/>
+O! Swawdill&rsquo;s good...<br/>
+<br/>
+O! Eastward ho! is t&rsquo; song o&rsquo; t&rsquo; gales,<br/>
+    As they sweep ower fell an&rsquo; lea;<br/>
+And Eastward ho! is t&rsquo; song o&rsquo; t&rsquo; dales,<br/>
+    That winnd frae t&rsquo; moors to t&rsquo; sea.<br/>
+Coom winter frost, coom summer druft,<br/>
+    Their watters munnot bide;<br/>
+An&rsquo; t&rsquo; rain that&rsquo;s fall&rsquo;n when bould winds soughed<br/>
+    Sal iver seawards glide.<br/>
+<br/>
+O! Swawdill&rsquo; s good...
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-126" id="fn-126"></a> <a href="#fnref-126">[1]</a>
+Hum.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-127" id="fn-127"></a> <a href="#fnref-127">[2]</a>
+Leap and dart away.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>The Flower of Wensleydale</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She leaned o&rsquo;er her latticed casement,<br/>
+    The Flower of Wensleydale;<br/>
+&rsquo;Twas St Agnes Eve at midnight,<br/>
+    Through the mist the stars burnt pale.<br/>
+<br/>
+In her hand she held twelve sage-leaves,<br/>
+    Plucked in her garden at noon;<br/>
+And over them she had whispered thrice<br/>
+    The spell of a mystic rune.<br/>
+<br/>
+For many had come a-wooing<br/>
+    The maid with the sloe-blue eyes;<br/>
+Fain would she learn of St Agnes<br/>
+    To whom should fall the prize.<br/>
+<br/>
+They said she must drop a sage-leaf<br/>
+    At each stroke of the midnight hour;<br/>
+Then should the knight of her father&rsquo;s choice<br/>
+Obey the summons of her voice,<br/>
+    And appear &rsquo;neath her oriel&rsquo;d bowwer.<br/>
+<br/>
+To the holy virgin-martyr<br/>
+    She lifted her hands in prayer;<br/>
+Then she watched the rooks that perched asleep<br/>
+    In the chestnut branches bare.<br/>
+<br/>
+At last on the frosty silence<br/>
+    There rang out the midnight chime;<br/>
+And the hills gave back in echoes<br/>
+    The knell of the dying time.<br/>
+<br/>
+She held her breath as she counted<br/>
+    The beats of the chapel bell;<br/>
+At every stroke of the hammer<br/>
+    A sage-leaf fluttered and fell,<br/>
+    Slowly fluttered and fell.<br/>
+<br/>
+Her heart stood still a moment,<br/>
+    As the last leaf touched the ground;<br/>
+And her hand went swift to her maiden breast,<br/>
+    For she heard a far-off sound;<br/>
+<br/>
+&rsquo;Twas the sound of a horseman spurring<br/>
+    His steed through the woodland glade;<br/>
+And ever the sound drew nearer,<br/>
+And the footfalls echoed clearer,<br/>
+    Till before her bower they stayed.<br/>
+<br/>
+She strained her eyes to discover,<br/>
+    By the light of a ghostly moon,<br/>
+Who was the knight had heard and obeyed<br/>
+    The hest of the mystic rune.<br/>
+<br/>
+But naught could she see from her casement,<br/>
+    Save a man on a coal-black steed;<br/>
+For his mantle was muffled about him,<br/>
+    His blazon she could not read.<br/>
+<br/>
+She crossed herself and she whispered&mdash;<br/>
+    Her voice was faint but clear&mdash;<br/>
+&ldquo;Oh! Who art thou that darest ride,<br/>
+Through the aspen glade, by the river&rsquo;s side,<br/>
+    My chamber window near?<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Say, art thou the lord of Bainbridge,<br/>
+    Or Gervase of Bolton Hall,<br/>
+That comest so late on St Agnes Eve<br/>
+    Within my manor wall?&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;I am not the lord of Bainbridge,<br/>
+    Nor Gervase of Bolton Hall,<br/>
+But I marked the light in thy casement,<br/>
+    And I saw the sage-leaves fall,<br/>
+    Flutter awhile and fall.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Camest thou over the moorlands,<br/>
+    Or camest thou through the dale?<br/>
+Speak no guile to a witless maid,<br/>
+    But tell me a soothfast tale.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;I came not over the moorlands,<br/>
+    Nor along the dale did ride;<br/>
+But thou seeest thy plighted lover,<br/>
+    That has come to claim his bride.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Say, art thou knight or yeoman,<br/>
+    Of noble or simple birth?<br/>
+Fain would I know thy lineage,<br/>
+    Thy prowess and thy worth.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Nor knight nor lowly yeoman,<br/>
+    But a mighty king am I;<br/>
+Bold vassals do my bidding,<br/>
+    And on mine errands hie.<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;They come to court and castle,<br/>
+    They climb the palace stairs;<br/>
+Nor pope nor king may entrance bar<br/>
+    To him my livery wears.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;But why should a king so mighty<br/>
+    Pay court to a simple maid?<br/>
+My father&rsquo;s a knight of low degree,<br/>
+No princely realm he holds in fee,<br/>
+No proud-foot damsels wait on me:<br/>
+    Thy steps have surely strayed.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;No step of mine hath wandered<br/>
+    From the goal of my desires;<br/>
+&rsquo;Tis on thee my hopes are centred,<br/>
+    &rsquo;Tis to thee my heart aspires.<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;I love thee for thy beauty,<br/>
+    I love thee for thy grace,<br/>
+I love thee for the dancing lights<br/>
+    That gleam in thy moon-lit face:<br/>
+And these I deem a peerless dower<br/>
+    To win a king&rsquo;s embrace.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;One boon, O royal lover,<br/>
+    I ask on St Agnes Day;<br/>
+I fain would gaze on thy visage fair<br/>
+    Ere with thee I steal away.<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Unmuffle thou the mantle<br/>
+    That hides thee like a pall;<br/>
+And let the purple trappings<br/>
+    From off thy shoulders fall.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+Slowly he loosed the mantle,<br/>
+    And showed his face beneath.<br/>
+The lights went out in the maiden&rsquo;s eyes;<br/>
+One swooning word she breathed to the skies:<br/>
+    The gaunt hills echoed &ldquo;Death.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Ridings by F. W. Moorman
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+Title: Songs of the Ridings
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+Author:  F. W. Moorman
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+
+
+Songs of the Ridings
+
+by F. W. Moorman
+
+
+
+
+Contents:
+
+Dedication
+Preface
+A Dalesman's Litany
+Cambodunum
+Telling the Bees
+The Two Lamplighters
+Our Beck
+Lord George
+Jenny Storm
+The New Englishman
+The Bells of Kirkby Overblow
+The gardener and the Robin
+Lile Doad
+His last Sail
+One Year Older
+The Hungry Forties
+The Flowers of Knaresborough Forest
+The Miller by the Shore
+The Bride's Homecoming
+The Artist
+Marra to Bonney�
+Mary Mecca
+The Local Preacher
+The Courting Gate
+Fieldfares
+A Song of the Yorkshire Dales
+The Flower of Wensleydale
+
+
+
+I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME TO THE YORKSHIRE MEMBERS OF THE WORKERS'
+EDUCATIONAL ASSOCITION
+
+
+
+Preface
+
+About two years ago I published a collection of Yorkshire dialect poems,
+chosen from many authors and extending over a period of two hundred and
+fifty years(1).  The volume was well received, and there are abundant
+signs that the interest in dialect literature is steadily growing in all
+parts of the county and beyond its borders.  What is most encouraging is
+to find that the book has found an entrance into the homes of Yorkshire
+peasants and artisans where the works of our great national poets are
+unknown.  I now essay the more venturesome task of publishing dialect
+verses of my own.  Most of the poems contained in this little volume have
+appeared, anonymously, in the Yorkshire press, and I have now decided to
+reissue them in book form and with my name on the title-page.
+
+A generation ago the minor poet was, in the eyes of most Englishmen, an
+object of ridicule.  Dickens and Thackeray had done their worst with him:
+we knew him--or her--as Augustus Snodgrass or Blanche Amory--an amiable
+fool or an unamiable minx.  The twentieth century has already, in its
+short course, done much to remove this prejudice, and the minor poet is no
+longer expected to be apologetic; his circle of readers, though small, is
+sympathetic, and the outside public is learning to tolerate him and to
+recognise that it is as natural and wholesome for him to write and publish
+his verses as it is for the minor painter to depict and exhibit in public
+his interpretation of the beauty and power which he sees in human life and
+in nature.  All this is clear gain, and the time may not be far distant
+when England will again become what it was in Elizabethan days--a nest of
+singing birds, where the minor poets will be able to take their share in
+the chorus of song, leaving the chief parts in the oratorio to the
+Shakespeares and Spensers of tomorrow.
+
+The twenty-five poems of which this volume consists are meant to serve a
+double purpose.  Most of them are character-sketches or dramatic studies,
+and my wish is to bring before the notice of my readers the habits of mind
+of certain Yorkshire men and women whose acquaintance I have made.  For
+ten years I have gone up hill and down dale in the three Ridings, intent
+on the study of the sounds, words and idioms of the local folk-speech.  At
+first my object was purely philological, but soon I came to realise that
+men and women were more interesting than words and phrases, and my
+attention was attracted from dialect speech to dialect speakers.  Among
+Yorkshire farmers, farm labourers, fishermen, miners and mill workers I
+discovered a vitality and an outlook upon life of which I, a bourgeois
+professor, had no previous knowledge.  Not, only had I never met such men
+before, but I had not read about them in literature, or seen their
+portraits painted on canvas.  The wish to give a literary interpretation
+of the world into which I had been privileged to enter grew every day more
+insistent, and this volume is the fulfilment of that wish.
+
+Of all forms of literature, whether in Verse or prose, the dramatic
+monologue seemed to me the aptest for the exposition of character and
+habits of mind.  It is the creation--or recreation--of Robert Browning,
+the most illuminating interpreter of the workings of the human mind that
+England has produced since Shakespeare died.  My first endeavour
+was therefore
+
+   to watch
+   The Master work, and catch
+   Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.
+
+I have been, I fear, a clumsy botcher in applying the lessons that
+Browning was able to teach, but the dramatic monologues of which this
+volume is largely composed owe whatever art they may possess to his
+example.  My dramatic studies are drawn from life.  For example, the local
+preacher who expresses his views on the rival merits of Church and Chapel
+is a Wharfedale acquaintance, and the farmer in 'Cambodunum' who declares
+that "eddication's nowt but muckment" actually expressed this view to a
+Chief Inspector of Schools, a member of the West Riding Education
+Committee, and myself, when we visited him on his farm.  I do not claim
+that I have furnished literal transcripts of what I heard in my
+conversations with my heroes and heroines, but my purpose throughout has
+been to hold a mirror up to Nature, to give a faithful interpretation of
+thought and character, and to show my readers some of the ply of mind and
+habits of life that still prevail among Yorkshiremen whose individuality
+has not been blunted by convention and who have the courage to express
+their reasoned or instinctive views of life and society.
+
+But the interpretation of the minds of Yorkshire peasants and artisans for
+the benefit of the so-called general reader is only the secondary object
+which I have in view.  My primary appeal is not to those who have the full
+chorus of English song, from Chaucer to Masefield, at their beck and call,
+but to a still larger class of men and women who are not general readers
+of literature at all, and for whom most English poetry is a closed book.
+In my dialect wanderings through Yorkshire I discovered that while there
+was a hunger for poetry in the hearts of the people, the great
+masterpieces of our national song made little or no appeal to them.  They
+were bidden to a feast of rarest quality and profusion, but it consisted
+of food that they could not assimilate.  Spenser, Milton, Pope, Keats,
+Tennyson, all spoke to them in a language which they could not understand,
+and presented to them a world of thought and life in which they had no
+inheritance.  But the Yorkshire dialect verse which circulated through the
+dales in chap-book or Christmas almanac was welcomed everywhere.  Two
+memories come before my mind as I write.  One is that of a North Riding
+farm labourer who knew by heart many of the dialect poems of the Eskdale
+poet, John Castillo, and was in the habit of reciting them to himself as
+he followed the plough.  The other is that of a blind girl in a West
+Riding village who had committed to memory scores of the poems of John
+Hartley, and, gathering her neighbours round her kitchen fire of a winter
+evening, regaled them with 'Bite Bigger', 'Nelly 'o Bob's' and other
+verses of the Halifax poet.  My object is to add something to this chorus
+of local song.  It was the aim of Addison in his 'Spectator' essays to
+bring "philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to
+dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffeehouses"; and, in
+like manner, it should be the aim of the writer of dialect verse to bring
+poetry out of the coteries of the people of leisure and to make it dwell
+in artisans' tenements and in cottagers' kitchens.  "Poetry," declared
+Shelley, "is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest
+and best minds," and it is time that the working men and women of England
+were made partakers in this inheritance of wealth and joy.
+
+It maybe argued that it should be the aim of our schools and universities
+to educate the working classes to appreciate what is best in standard
+English poetry.  I do not deny that much maybe done in this way, but let
+us not forget that something more will be needed than a course of
+instruction in poetic diction and metrical rhythm.  Our great poets depict
+a world which is only to a very small extent that of the working man.  It
+is a world of courts and drawingrooms and General Headquarters, a world of
+clubs and academies.  The working man or woman finds a place in this
+charmed world only if his occupation is that of a shepherd, and even then
+he must be a shepherd of the Golden Age and answer to the name of
+Corydon.  Poets, we are solemnly assured by Pope, must not describe
+shepherds as they really are, "but as they may be conceived to have been
+when the best of men followed the employment of shepherd."
+Class-consciousness--a word often on the lips of our democratic leaders
+of today--has held far too much sway over the minds of poets from the
+Elizabethan age onwards.  Spenser writes his 'Faerie Queene' "to fashion a
+gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline," and Milton's
+audience, fit but few, is composed of scholars whose ears have been
+attuned to the harmonies of epic verse from their first lisping of
+Virgilian hexameters, or of latter-day Puritans, like John Bright, who
+overhear in 'Paradise Lost' the echoes of a faith that once was stalwart.
+
+But what, it may be asked, of Crabbe, and what of Wordsworth? The former
+by his own confession, paints
+
+                                        the cot,
+   As truth will paint it and as bards will not;
+
+but as we listen to his verse tales we can never forget that it is the
+Rev. George Crabbe who is instructing us, or that his pedestal is the
+topmost story of his three-decker pulpit at Aldborough.  Wordsworth's
+sympathy with the lives of the Cumberland peasantry is profound, and the
+time is surely not distant when such a poem as 'Michael' will win a place
+in the hearts of working men; but it is to be feared that in his own
+generation "Mr Wudsworth" served rather--as a warning than an
+encouragement to his peasant neighbours.  "Many's the time," an old
+Cumberland innkeeper told Canon Rawnsley, "I've seed him a-takin' his
+family out in a string, and niver geein' the deariest bit of notice to
+'em; standin' by hissel' an' stoppin' behind a-gapin', wi' his jaws
+workin' the whoal time; but niver no crackin' wi' 'em, nor no pleasure in
+'em--a desolate-minded man, ye kna...  It was potry as did it."(2)
+
+Our English non-dramatic poetry from the Renaissance onwards is second to
+none in richness of thought and beauty of diction, but it lacks the
+highest quality of all--universality of interest and appeal.  Our poets
+have turned a cold shoulder to the activities and aims of the working man,
+and the working man has, in consequence, turned a cold shoulder to the
+great English classic poets.  The loss on either side has been great,
+though it is only now beginning to be realised.  "A literature which
+leaves large areas of the national activity and aspiration unexpressed is
+in danger of becoming narrow, esoteric, unhealthy.  Areas of activity and
+aspiration unlit by the cleansing sun of art, untended by the loving
+consideration of the poet, will be dungeons for the national spirit,
+mildewed cellars in which rats fight, misers hoard their gold, and Guy
+Fawkes lays his train to blow the superstructure sky-high."(3)
+
+There was a time when poetry meant much more to the working men of
+England.  In the later Middle Ages, above all in that fifteenth century
+which literary historians are fond of describing as the darkest period in
+English literature, the working man had won for himself what seemed a
+secure place in poetry.  Narrative, lyric and dramatic poetry had all
+opened their portals to him, and made his life and aims their theme.  Side
+by side with the courtly verse romances, which were read in the bowers of
+highborn ladies, were the terse and popular ballads, which were chanted by
+minstrels, wandering from town to town and from village to village.  Among
+the heroes of these ballads we find that "wight yeoman," Robin Hood, who
+wages war against mediaeval capitalism, as embodied in the persons of the
+abbot-landholders, and against the class legislation of Norman game laws
+which is enforced by the King's sheriff.  The lyric poetry of the century
+is not the courtly Troubadour song or the Petrarchian sonnet, but the
+folk-song that sings from the heart to the heart of the beauty of Alysoun,
+"seemliest of all things," or, in more convivial mood, accounts good ale
+of more worth than a table set with many dishes:
+
+   Bring us in no capon's flesh, for that is often dear,
+   Nor bring us in no duck's flesh, for they slobber in the mere,
+   But bring us in good ale!
+   Bring us in good ale, and bring us in good ale;
+   For our blessed Lady sake bring us in good ale.
+
+Most remarkable of all is the history of the drama in the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries.  The drama was clerical and not popular in its
+origin, and when, in course of time, it passed out of the hands of the
+clergy it is natural to suppose that it would find a new home at the
+King's court or the baron's castle.  It did nothing of the kind.  It
+passed from the Church to the people, and it was the artisan craftsmen of
+the English towns, organised in their trade-guilds, to whom we owe the
+great cycles of our miracle plays.  The authors of these plays were
+restricted to Bible story for their themes, but the popular character of
+their work is everywhere apparent in the manner in which the material is
+handled and the characters conceived.  The Noah of the Deluge plays is an
+English master joiner with a shrewish wife, and three sons who are his
+apprentices.  When the divine command to build an ark comes to him, he
+sets to work with an energy that drives away "the weariness of five
+hundred winters" and, "ligging on his line," measures his planks,
+"clenches them with noble new nails", and takes a craftsman's delight in
+the finished work:
+
+  This work I warant both good and true.(4)
+
+In like manner, the Shepherds of the Nativity plays are conceived and
+fashioned by men who, fortunate in that they knew nothing of the
+seductions of Arcadian pastoralism, have studied at first hand the habits
+and thoughts of English fifteenth-century shepherds, and paint these to
+the life.
+
+Thus, at the close of the Middle Ages, narrative, lyric and dramatic
+poetry seemed firmly established among the people.  Not unmindful of
+romance, it was grounded in realism and sought to interpret the life of
+the peasant and the artisan of fifteenth-century England.  The Renaissance
+follows, and a profound change comes over poetry.  The popular note grows
+fainter and fainter, till at last it becomes inaudible.  Poetry leaves the
+farmyard and the craftsman's bench for the court.  The folk-song,
+fashioned in to a thing of wondrous beauty by the creator of Amiens, Feste
+and Autolycus, is driven from the stage by Ben Jonson, and its place is
+taken by a lyric of classic extraction.  The popular drama, ennobled and
+made shapely through contact with Latin drama, passes from the provincial
+market-place to Bankside, and the rude mechanicals of the trade-guilds
+yield place to the Lord Chamberlain's players.  In the dramas of
+Shakespeare the popular note is still audible, but only as an undertone,
+furnishing comic relief to the romantic amours of courtly lovers or the
+tragic fall of Princes; with Beaumont and Fletcher, and still more with
+Dryden and the Restoration dramatists, the popular element in the drama
+passes away, and the triumph of the court is complete.  The Elizabethan
+court could find no use for the popular ballad, but, like other forms of
+literature, it was attracted from the country-side to the city.  Forgetful
+of the greenwood, it now battened on the garbage of Newgate, and 'Robin
+Hood and Guy of Gisburn' yields place to 'The Wofull Lamentation
+of William Purchas, who for murthering his Mother at Thaxted, was
+executed at Chelmsford'.
+
+We are justly proud of the Renaissance and of the glories of our
+Elizabethan literature, but let us frankly own that in the annals of
+poetry there was loss as well as gain.  The gain was for the courtier and
+the scholar, and for all those who, in the centuries that followed the
+Renaissance, have been able, by means of education, to enter into the
+courtier's and scholar's inheritance.  The loss has been for the people.
+The opposition between courtly taste and popular taste is hard to analyse,
+but we have only to turn our eyes from England to Scotland, which lost its
+royal court in 1603, in order to appreciate the reality of the
+opposition.  In Scotland the courtly poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth
+centuries soon disappeared when James I exchanged Holyrood for Whitehall,
+but popular poetry continued to live and grow.  The folk-song gathered
+power and sweetness all through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
+till it culminated at last in the lyric of Burns.  Popular drama, never
+firmly rooted in Scotland, was stamped out by the Reformation, but the
+popular ballad outlived the mediaeval minstrel, was kept alive in the
+homes of Lowland farmers and shepherds, and called into being the great
+ballad revival of the nineteenth century.
+
+It is idle to speculate what would have been the progress of poetry in
+England if the Renaissance had not come and the Elizabethan courtier had
+not enriched himself at the expense of the people.  What we have to bear
+in mind is that all through the centuries that followed the Renaissance
+the working men and women of England looked almost in vain to their poets
+for a faithful interpretation of their life and aims.  The wonder
+is that the instinct for poetry did not perish in their hearts for
+lack of sustenance.
+
+There are at the present time clear signs of a revival of popular poetry
+and popular drama.  The verse tales of Masefield and Gibson, the lyrics of
+Patrick MacGill, the peasant  or artisan plays which have been produced at
+the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, may well be
+the beginning of a great democratic literary movement.  Democracy, in its
+striving after a richer and fuller life for the people of England, is at
+last turning its attention to literature and art.  It is slowly realising
+two great truths.  The first is that literature may be used as a mighty
+weapon in the furtherance of political justice and social reform, and that
+the pied pipers of folk-song have the power to rouse the nation and charm
+the ears of even the Mother of Parliaments.  The second is that the
+working man needs something more to sustain him than bread and the
+franchise and a fair day's wage for a fair day's work.  Democracy, having
+obtained for the working man a place in the government of the nation, is
+now asserting his claim to a place in the temples of poetry.  The
+Arthurian knight, the Renaissance courtier, the scholar and the wit must
+admit the twentieth-century artisan to their circle.  Piers the ploughman
+must once more become the hero of song, and Saul Kane, the poacher, must
+find a place, alongside of Tiresias and Merlin, among the seers and
+mystics.  Let democracy look to William Morris, poet, artist and social
+democrat, for inspiration and guidance, and take to heart the message of
+prophecy which he has left us: "If art, which is now sick, is to live
+and not die, it must in the future be of the people, for the people,
+by the people."
+
+In the creation of this poetry "of the people, by the people" dialect may
+well be called upon to play a part.  Dialect is of the people, though in a
+varying degree in the different parts of the wide areas of the globe where
+the English language is spoken; it possesses, moreover, qualities, and is
+fraught with associations, which are of the utmost value to the poet and
+to which the standard speech can lay no claim.  It may be that for some of
+the more elaborate kinds of poetry, such as the formal epic, dialect is
+useless; let it be reserved, therefore, for those kinds which appeal most
+directly to the hearts of the people.  The poetry of the people includes
+the ballad and the verse tale, lyric in all its forms, and some kinds of
+satire; and for all these dialect is a fitting instrument.  It possesses
+in the highest degree directness of utterance and racy vigour.  How much
+of their force would the "Biglow Papers" of J. R. Lowell lose if they were
+transcribed from the Yankee dialect into standard English!
+
+But the highest quality of dialect speech, and that which renders it
+pre-eminently fitted for poetic use, is its intimate association with all
+that lies nearest to the heart of the working man.  It is the language of
+his hearth and home; many of the most cherished memories of his life are
+bound up with it; it is for him the language of freedom, whereas standard
+English is that of constraint.  In other words, dialect is the working
+man's poetic diction--a poetic diction as full of savour as that of the
+eighteenth-century poets was flat and insipid.
+
+It is sometimes said that the use of dialect makes the appeal of poetry
+provincial instead of national or universal.  This is only true when the
+dialect poet is a pedant and obscures his meaning by fantastic spellings.
+The Lowland Scots element in 'Auld Lang Syne' has not prevented it from
+becoming the song of friendship of the Anglo-Saxon race all the world
+over.  Moreover, the provincial note in poetry or prose is far from being
+a bad thing.  In the 'Idylls' of Theocritus it gave new life to Greek
+poetry in the third century before Christ, and it may render the same high
+service to English poetry to-day or to-morow.  The rise of Provincial
+schools of literature, interpreting local life in local idiom, in all
+parts of the British Isles and in the Britain beyond the seas, is a goal
+worth striving for; such a literature, so far from impeding the progress
+of the literature in the standard tongue, would serve only to enrich it in
+spirit, substance and form.
+
+1. 'Yorkshire Dialect Poems', 1673-1915 (Sedgwick and Jackson 1916)
+
+2. 'Reminiscences'
+
+3. J. Dover Wilson, Writing in the 'Athenaeum' under the pseudonym
+"Muezzin," February, 1917.  The quotation is from one of four articles,
+entitled "Prospects in English Literature," to which the ideas set forth
+in this Preface owe much.
+
+4. "York Plays": The Building of the Ark.
+
+
+
+
+A Dalesman's Litany
+
+
+>From Hull, Halifax, and Hell, good Lord deliver us.
+     A Yorkshire Proverb.
+
+
+It's hard when fowks can't finnd their wark
+   Wheer they've bin bred an' born;
+When I were young I awlus thowt
+   I'd bide 'mong t' roots an' corn.
+But I've bin forced to work i' towns,
+   So here's my litany:
+Frae Hull, an' Halifax, an' Hell,
+   Gooid Lord, deliver me!
+
+When I were courtin' Mary Ann,
+   T' owd squire, he says one day:
+"I've got no bield(1) for wedded fowks;
+   Choose, wilt ta wed or stay?"
+I couldn't gie up t' lass I loved,
+   To t' town we had to flee:
+Frae Hull, an' Halifax, an' Hell,
+   Gooid Lord, deliver me!
+
+I've wrowt i' Leeds an' Huthersfel',
+   An' addled(2) honest brass;
+I' Bradforth, Keighley, Rotherham,
+   I've kept my barns an' lass.
+I've travelled all three Ridin's round,
+   And once I went to sea:
+Frae forges, mills, an' coalin' boats,
+   Gooid Lord, deliver me!
+
+I've walked at neet through Sheffield loans,(3)
+   'T were same as bein' i' Hell:
+Furnaces thrast out tongues o' fire,
+   An' roared like t' wind on t' fell.
+I've sammed up coals i' Barnsley pits,
+   Wi' muck up to my knee:
+Frae Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham,
+   Gooid Lord, deliver me!
+
+I've seen grey fog creep ower Leeds Brig
+   As thick as bastile(4) soup;
+I've lived wheer fowks were stowed away
+   Like rabbits in a coop.
+I've watched snow float down Bradforth Beck
+   As black as ebiny:
+Frae Hunslet, Holbeck, Wibsey Slack,
+   Gooid Lord, deliver me!
+
+But now, when all wer childer's fligged,(5)
+   To t' coontry we've coom back.
+There's fotty mile o' heathery moor
+   Twix' us an' t' coal-pit slack.
+And when I sit ower t' fire at neet,
+   I laugh an' shout wi' glee:
+Frae Bradforth, Leeds, an Huthersfel',
+Frae Hull, an' Halifax, an' Hell,
+   T' gooid Lord's delivered me!
+
+1. Shelter. 	2. Earned,
+3. Lanes  4. Workhouse  5. Fledged
+
+
+
+
+Cambodunum
+
+
+Cambodunum is the name of a Roman station, situated on a farm at Slack,
+on the hills above Huddersfield.
+
+
+Cambodunum, Cambodunum,
+   how I love the sound o' t' name!
+Roman sowdiers belt a fort here,
+   gave th' owd place its lastin' fame.
+
+We've bin lords o' Cambodunum
+   for well-nigh eight hunderd yeer;
+Fowk say our fore-elders
+   bowt it of a Roman charioteer.
+
+Ay, I know we're nobbut farmers,
+   mowin' gerse an' tentin' kye,
+But we're proud of all we've stood for
+   i' yon ages that's gone by;
+
+Proud of all the slacks we've drained,
+   an' proud of all the walls we've belt,
+Proud to think we've bred our childer
+   on the ground wheer Romans dwelt.
+
+"Niver pairt wi' Cambodunum,"
+   that's what father used to say;
+"If thou does, thou'll coom to ruin,
+   beg thy breead thro' day to day."
+
+I'll noan pairt wi' Cambodunum,
+   though its roof lets in the rains,
+An' its walls wi' age are totterin';
+   Cambodunum's i' my veins.
+
+Ivery stone about the buildin'
+   has bin dressed by Roman hands,
+An' red blooid o' Roman sowdiers
+   has bin temmed(1) out on its lands.
+
+Often, when I ploo i' springtime,
+   I leet on their buried hoard--
+Coins an' pottery, combs an' glasses;
+   once I fan' a rusty sword.
+
+Whisht! I'll tell thee what I saw here
+   of a moon-lit winter neet--
+Ghosts o' Romans i' their war-gear,
+   wheelin' slow wi' silent feet;
+
+Pale their faces, proud their bearin',
+   an' a strange gloor i' their een,
+As they marched past an' saluted,
+   while th' east wind blew snell an' keen.
+
+Dalewards, dalewards, iver dalewards,
+   th' hill-fowk wander yeer by yeer,
+An' they toss their heeads an' flout me,
+   when they see me bidin' here.
+
+I've one answer to their fleerin':
+   "I'll noan be a fact'ry slave,
+Breathin' poison i' yon wark-shops,
+   diggin' ivery day my grave."
+
+"You may addle brass i' plenty,
+   you'll noan addle peace o' mind;
+That sal bide amang us farmers
+   on th' owd hills you've left behind."
+
+See that place down theer i' t' valley,
+   wheer yon chimleys spit out smoke?
+Huthersfield is what they call it,
+   wheer fowk live like pigs i' t' poke;
+
+Wheer men grind their hearts to guineas,
+   an' their mills are awlus thrang,
+Turnin' neet-time into day-time,
+   niver stoppin' th' whole yeer lang.
+
+Cambodunum up on th' hill-tops,
+   Huthersfield down i' yon dale;
+One's a place for free-born Britons,
+   t'other's ommost like a jail.
+
+Here we live i' t' leet an' sunshine,
+   free as larks i' t' sky aboon;
+Theer men tew(2) like mowdiwarps(3)
+   that grub up muck by t' glent o' t' moon.
+
+See yon motor whizzin' past us,
+   ower th' owd brig that spans our beck;
+That's what fowk call modern progress,
+   march o' human intelleck.
+
+Modern progress, modern ruin!
+   March o' int'leck, march o' fooils!
+All that cooms o' larnin' childer
+   i' their colleges an' schooils.
+
+Eddication! Sanitation!!--
+   teeming brass reight down a sink;
+Eddication's nowt but muckment,
+   sanitation's just a stink.
+
+Childer mun have books an' picturs,
+   bowt at t' most expensive shops,
+Teliscowps to go star-gazin',
+   michaelscowps to look at lops.(4)
+
+Farmers munnot put their midden
+   straight afoor their kitchen door;
+Once a week they're set spring-cleanin',
+   fettlin' up their shippen(5) floor.
+
+Women-fowk have taen to knackin',(6)
+   wilent speyk their mother-tongue,
+Try to talk like chaps i' t' powpit,
+   chicken-chisted, wake i' t' lung.
+
+Some fowk say I'm too owd-feshioned;
+   mebbe, they are tellin' true:
+When you've lived wi' ghosts o' Romans,
+   you've no call for owt that's new.
+
+Weel I know I san't win t' vict'ry:
+   son's agean me, dowters, wife;
+Yit I'll hold my ground bout flinchin',
+   feight so long as I have life.
+
+An' if t' wick uns are agean me,
+   I sal feight for them that's deead--
+Roman sowdiers i' their trenches,
+   lapped i' mail thro' foot to heead.
+
+Here I stand for Cambodunum,
+   eagle's nest on t' Pennine hills,
+Wagin' war wi' modern notions,
+   carin' nowt for forges, mills.
+
+Deeath alone sal call surrender,
+   stealin' on me wi' his hosts,
+And when Deeath has won his battle,
+   I'll go seek my Roman ghosts.
+
+Then I'll hear their shout o' welcome
+   "Here cooms Bob 'o Dick 'o Joe's,
+Bred an' born at Cambodunum,
+   held th'owd fort agean his foes;
+
+"Fowt for ancient ways an' customs,
+   ne'er to feshion bent his knee;
+Oppen t' ranks, lads, let him enter;
+   he's a Roman same as we."
+
+1. Poured,   2. Slave.  3. Moles.
+4. Fleas  5. Cow-house.
+6. Affected pronunciation.
+
+
+
+
+TELLING THE BEES
+
+
+On many Yorkshire farms it was perhaps still is the
+custom to tell the bees when a death had taken place in the
+family. The hive had to be put into mourning, and when
+the arval, or funeral feast, was held, after the return
+from the grave, small portions of everything eaten or
+drunk had to be given to the bees in a saucer. Failure
+to do this meant either the death or departure of the bees.
+
+
+Whisht! laatle bees, sad tidings I bear,
+   Bees, bees, murmurin' low;
+Cauld i' his grave ligs your maister dear,
+   Bees, bees, murmurin' low.
+Nea mair he'll ride to t' soond o' t' horn,
+Nea mair he'll fettle his sickle for t' corn.
+Nea mair he'll coom to your skep of a morn,
+   Bees, bees, murmurin' low.
+
+Muther sits cryin' i' t' ingle nook,
+   Bees, bees, murmurin' low;
+Parson's anent her wi' t' Holy Book,
+   Bees, bees, murmurin' low.
+T' mourners are coom, an' t' arval is spread,
+Cakes fresh frae t' yoon,(1) an' fine havver-bread.
+But toom'(2) is t' seat at t' table-head,
+   Bees, bees, murmurin' low.
+
+Look, conny(3) bees, I's winndin' black crape,
+  Bees, bees, murmurin' low;
+Slowly an' sadly your skep I mun drape,
+  Bees, bees, murmurin' low.
+Else you will sicken an' dwine(4) reet away,
+Heart-brokken bees, now your maister is clay;
+Or, mebbe, you'l leave us wi' t' dawn o' t' day,
+   Bees, bees, murmurin' low.
+
+Sitha! I bring you your share o' our feast,
+   Bees, bees, murmurin' low;
+Cakes an' yal(5) an' wine you mun taste,
+   Bees, bees, murmurin' low.
+Gie some to t' queen on her gowlden throne,
+There's foison to feed both worker an' drone;
+Oh! dean't let us fend for oursels alone;
+   Bees, bees, murmurin' low.
+
+
+1.Oven  2.Empty  3.Darling  4.Waste  5.Ale
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO LAMPLIGHTERS
+
+
+I niver thowt when I grew owd
+   I'd tak to leetin' lamps;
+I sud have said, I'd rayther pad
+   My hoof on t' road wi' tramps.
+But sin I gate that skelp(1) i' t' mine,
+   I'm wankle(2) i' my heead;
+So gaffer said, I'd give ower wark
+   An' leet town lamps atsteead.
+
+At first, when I were liggin' snug
+   I' bed, warm as a bee,
+'T were hard to rise and get agate
+   As sooin as t' clock strake three.
+An' I were flaid to hear my steps
+   Echoin' on ivery wall;
+An' flaider yet when down by t' church
+   Ullets would skreek and call.
+
+But now I'm flaid o' nowt; I love
+   All unkerd(3) sounds o' t' neet,
+Frae childer talkin' i' their dreams
+   To t' tramp o' p'licemen' feet.
+But most of all I love to hark
+   To t' song o' t' birds at dawn;
+They wakken up afore it gloams,
+   When t' dew ligs thick on t' lawn.
+
+If I feel lonesome, up I look
+   To t' sky aboon my heead;
+An' theer's yon stars all glestrin' breet,
+   Like daisies in a mead.
+But sometimes, when I'm glowerin' up,
+   I see the Lord hissen;
+He's doutin' all yon lamps o' Heaven
+   That shines on mortal men.
+
+He lowps alang frae star to star,
+   As cobby(4) as can be;
+Mebbe He reckons fowk's asleep,
+   Wi' niver an eye to see.
+But I hae catched Him at his wark,
+   For all He maks no din;
+He leaves a track o' powder'd gowd(5)
+   To show where He has bin.
+
+He's got big lamps an' laatle lamps,
+   An' lamps that twinkles red;
+Im capped to see Him dout 'em all
+   Afore I'm back i' bed.
+But He don't laik about His wark,
+   Or stop to hark to t' birds;
+He minds His business, does the Lord,
+   An' wastes no gaumless words.
+
+I grow more like Him ivery day,
+   For all I walk so lame;
+An', happen, there will coom a time
+   I'll beat Him at His game.
+Thrang as Throp's wife, I'll dout my lamps
+   Afore He's gotten so far;
+An' then I'll shout--"I've won my race,
+   I've bet Him by a star."
+
+
+1. Blow 2. Unsteady 3. Strange, eerie
+4. Active  5. The Milky Way
+
+
+
+
+Our Beck
+
+
+I niver heerd its name; we call it just "Our beck."
+   Mebbe, there's bigger streams down Ripon way;
+But if thou wants clean watter, by my neck!
+   Thou'll travel far for cleaner, ony day.
+
+Clear watter! Why, when t' sun is up i' t' sky,
+   I've seen yon flickerin' shadows o' lile trout
+Glidin' ower t' shingly boddom. Step thou nigh,
+   An' gloor at t' minnows dartin' in an' out.
+
+Our beck flows straight frae slacks o' moorland peat,
+   An' gethers sweetness out o' t' ling an' gorse;
+At first its voice sounds weantly(1) saft an' leet,
+   But graws i' strength wi' lowpin ower yon force.
+
+Then thou sud see the birds alang its banks--
+   Grey heronsews, that coom to fish at dawn;
+Dippers, that under t' watter play sike pranks,
+   An' lang-nebbed curlews, swaimish(2) as a fawn.
+
+Soomtimes I've seen young otters leave their holes,
+   An' laik like kitlins ower the silver dew;
+An' I've watched squirrels climmin' up the boles
+   O' beech trees, lowpin' leet frae beugh to beugh.
+
+Fowers! Why, thou'd fill thy skep,(3) lass, in an hour,
+   Wi' gowlands, paigles, blobs,(4) an' sike-like things;
+We've daffydills to deck a bridal bower,
+   Pansies, wheer lady-cows(5) can dry their wings.
+
+Young childer often bathe, when t'weather's fine,
+   Up yonder, wheer t' owd miller's bigged his weir;
+I like to see their lish,(6) nakt bodies shine,
+   An' watch 'em dive i' t' watter widoot fear.
+
+Ay, yon's our brig, bent like an archer's bow,
+   It's t' meetin' place o' folk frae near an' far;
+Young 'uns coom theer wi' lasses laughin' low,
+   Owd 'uns to talk o' politics an' t' war.
+
+It's daft when chaps that sit i' Parliament
+   Weant tak advice frae lads that talk farm-twang;
+If t' coontry goes to t' dogs, it's 'cause they've sent
+   Ower mony city folk to mend what's wrang.
+
+They've taen our day-tale men(7) to feight for t' land,
+   Then tell us we mun keep our staggarths(8) full.
+What's lasses, gauvies,(9) greybeards stark(10) i' t' hand,
+   To strip wer kye, an' ploo, an' tew wi' t' shool?(11)
+
+But theer, I'll nurse my threapin' while it rains,
+   An' while my rheumatiz is bad to bide;
+I mun step heamwards now, through t' yatts(12) an' lanes,
+   Wheer t' owd lass waits for me by t' fireside.
+
+
+1. Strangely   2 Timid   3 Basket
+4. Kingcups, cowslips, globe-flowers.   5. Ladybirds
+6 Smooth.   7. Day Labourers   8. Stock Yards
+9. Simpletons   10. stiff   11. Shovel  12. Gates
+
+
+
+
+Lord George
+
+
+These verses were written soon after the Old Age Pensions Bill
+came into operation.
+
+
+I'd walk frae here to Skipton,
+   Ten mile o' clarty(1) lanes,
+If I might see him face to face
+   An' thank him for his pains.
+He's ta'en me out o' t' Bastile,(2)
+   He's gi'en me life that's free:
+Five shill'n a week for fuglin'(3) Death
+	Is what Lord George gives me.
+
+He gives me leet an' firin',
+   An' flour to bak i' t' yoon.(4)
+I've tea to mesh for ivery meal
+   An' sup all t' afternoon.
+I've nowt to do but thank him,
+   An' mak' a cross wi' t' pen;
+Five shillin' a week for nobbut that!
+   Gow! he's the jewel o' men.
+
+I niver mell on pol'tics,
+   But I do love a lord;
+He spends his savin's like a king,
+   Wheer other fowks 'll hoard.
+I know a vast o' widdies
+   That's seen their seventieth year;
+Lord George, he addles brass for all,
+   Though lots on 't goes for beer.
+
+If my owd man were livin',
+   He'd say as I spak true;
+He couldn't thole them yallow Rads,
+   But awlus voted blue.
+An' parson's wife, shoo telled me
+   That we'll sooin go to t' poll;
+I hope shoo's reight; I'll vote for George,
+   Wi' all my heart an' soul.
+
+
+I don't know wheer he springs frae,
+   Happen it's down Leeds way;
+But ivery neet an' mornin'
+   For his lang life I pray.
+He's ta'en me out o' t' Bastile,
+   He's gi'en me life that's free:
+Five shill'n a week for fuglin' Death
+   Is what Lord George gives me.
+
+
+1. Muddy.   2. Workhouse.   3. Cheating
+4. Oven
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The New Englishman
+
+
+I've lived all my life i' Keighley,
+   I'm a Yorkshire artisan;
+An' when I were just turned seventy
+   I became an Englishman.
+
+Nat'ralised German! nay, deng it!
+   I'm British-born, same as thee!
+But I niver thowt mich to my country,
+   While(1) my country thowt mich to me.
+
+I were proud o' my lodge an' my union,
+   An' proud o' my town an' my shire;
+But all t' consans o' t' nation,
+   I left to t' parson an' t' squire.
+
+Class-war were t' faith that I Iived for,
+   I call'd all capit'lists sharks;
+An' "T' workin' man has no country,"
+   Were my Gospel accordin' to Marx.
+
+When I'd lossen my job back i' t' eighties,
+   An were laikin' for well-nigh two year,
+Who said that an out-o'-wark fettler
+   Were costin' his country dear?
+
+Owd England cared nowt about me,
+   I could clem(2) wi' my barns an' my wife;
+Shoo were ower thrang wi' buildin' up t' empire
+   To build up a brokken life.
+
+"Ivery man for hissen," shoo said,
+   "An' t' dule can catch what he can;
+Labour's cheap an' trade's worth more
+   Nor t' life of a workin' man."
+
+When t' country were chuff,(3) an' boasted
+   That t' sun niver set on her flags,
+I thowt o' wer back-to-back houses,
+   Wer childer i' spetches(4) an' rags,
+
+When t' country drave by i' her carriage,
+   Wi' flunkies afore an' behind,
+I left her to bettermy bodies,
+   An' I gav her a taste o' my mind.
+
+But when shoo were liggin' i' t' gutter,
+   Wi' a milit'rist mob at her throit,
+"Hands off her!" I cried, "shoo's my mother:"
+   An' I doffed my cap an' my coit.
+
+I'd gien ower wark at seventy,
+   But I gat agate once more;
+"I'll live for my country, not on her"
+   Were my words on t' fettlers' floor.
+
+Shoo's putten her trust i' us workers,
+   We'll save her, niver fear;
+Feight for her, live for her, dee for her,
+   Her childer that loves her dear.
+
+Eight o' my grandsons has fallen,
+   My youngest lad's crippled i' t' arm;
+But I'll give her choose-what(5) shoo axes,
+   Afore I'll see her tak harm.
+
+T' war is a curse an' a blessin',
+   If fowks could understan';
+It's brokken my home an' my childer,
+   But it's made me an Englishman.
+
+
+1. until 2. Starve 3. Arrogant
+4. Patches 5. Whatever
+
+
+
+
+THE BELLS OF KIRKBY OVERBLOW
+
+
+Draw back my curtains, Mary,
+   An' oppen t' windey wide;
+Ay, ay, I know I'm deein',
+   While to-morn I'll hardlins bide.
+But yit afore all's ovver,
+   An' I lig cowd as snow,
+I'll hear once more them owd church bells
+               O' Kirkby Overblow.
+
+Mony a neet an' mornin'
+   I've heerd yon church bells peal;
+An' how I've threaped an' cursed 'em
+   When I was strong an' weel!
+Gert, skelpin', chunterin' taistrils,(1)
+   All janglin' in a row!
+Ay, mony a time I've cursed yon bells
+               O' Kirkby Overblow.
+
+When you hear yon church bells ringin',
+   You can't enjoy your sin;
+T' bells clutches at your heart-strings
+   I' t' ale-house ower your gin.
+At pitch-an'-toss you're laikin',
+   Down theer i' t' wood below;
+An' then you damn them rowpy(2) bells
+               O' Kirkby Overblow.
+
+An' when I've set off poachin'
+   At back-end o' the year,
+Wi' ferret, bag an' snickle,(3)
+   Church bells have catched my ear.
+"Thou's takken t' road to Hell, lad,
+   Wheer t' pit-fire's bumin' slow;"
+That's what yon bells kept shoutin' out
+               At Kirkby Overblow.
+
+But now I'm owd an' bed-fast,
+   I ommost like their sound,
+Ringin' so clear i' t' star-leet
+   Across the frozzen ground.
+I niver mell on(4) parsons,
+   There ain't a prayer I know;
+But prayer an' sarmon's i' yon bells
+               O' Kirkby Overblow.
+
+Six boards o' gooid stout ellum
+   Is what I'll want to-morn;
+Then lay me low i' t' church-yard
+   Aneath t' owd crooked thorn.
+I'll have no funeral sarvice
+   When I'm browt down below,
+But let 'em touzle t' bells like mad
+               At Kirkby Overblow.
+
+I don't know wheer I'm boun' for,
+   It hardlins can be Heaven;
+I've sinned more sins nor most men
+   'Twixt one an' seven-seven.
+But this I'll tak my oath on:
+   Wheeriver I mun go,
+I'll hark to t' echoes o' yon bells
+               O' Kirkby Overblow.
+
+
+1 Unwieldy, grumbling rascals.  2 Hoarse.
+3. Snare  4. Meddle with.
+
+
+
+
+THE GARDENER AND THE ROBIN
+
+
+Why! Bobbie, so thou's coom agean!
+   I'm fain to see thee here;
+It's lang sin I've set een on thee,
+   It's ommost hauf a yeer.
+What's that thou says? Thou's taen a wife
+   An' raised a family.
+It seems thou's gien 'em all the slip
+   Now back-end's drawin' nigh.
+
+I mun forgi'e thee; we're owd friends,
+   An' fratchin's not for us;
+Blackbirds an' spinks(1) I can't abide,
+   At doves an' crows I cuss.
+But thou'll noan steal my strawberries,
+   Or nip my buds o' plum;
+Most feather-fowl I drive away,
+   But thou can awlus coom.
+
+Ay, that's thy place, at top o' t' clod,
+   Thy heead cocked o' one side,
+Lookin' as far-learnt as a judge.
+   Is that a worrm thou's spied?
+By t' Megs! he's well-nigh six inch lang,
+   An' reed as t' gate i' t' park;
+If thou don't mesh him up a bit,
+   He'll gie thee belly-wark.
+
+My missus awlus lets me know
+   I'm noan so despert thin;
+If I ate sausages as thou
+   Eats worrms, I'd brust my skin!
+Howd on! leave soom for t' mowdiwarps(2)
+   That scrats down under t' grund ;
+Of worrms, an' mawks,(3) an' bummel-clocks(4)
+   Thou's etten hauf a pund.
+
+So now thou'll clear thy pipes an' sing:
+   Grace after meat, I s'pose.
+Thou looks as holy as t' owd saint
+   I' church wi' t' brokken nose.
+Thou's plannin' marlocks(5) all the time,
+   Donned i' thy sowdier coat;
+An' what we tak for hymns o' praise
+   Is just thy fratchin' note.
+
+I've seen thee feightin' theer on t' lawn,
+   Beneath yon laurel tree;
+Thy neb was reed wi' blooid, thou looked
+   As chuffy(6) as could be.
+Thou's got no mense nor morals, Bob,
+   But weel I know thy charm.
+Ay, thou can stand upon my spade.
+   I'll niver do thee harm.
+
+
+1 Chaffinches.   2. Moles.   3. Maggots.
+4. Beetles   5. Tricks   6.  Haughty
+
+
+
+
+Lile Doad
+
+
+The Lord's bin hard on me, Sir,
+   He's stown my barn away.
+O dowly, dowly was that neet
+   He stole lile Doad away!
+
+'Twas Whissuntide we wedded,
+   Next Easter he was born,
+Just as t' last star i' t' April sky
+   Had faded into t' morn.
+Throstles were singin, canty,(1)
+   For they'd their young i' t' nest;
+But birds don't know a mother's love
+   That howds her barn to t' breast.
+
+When wark was ower i' summer,
+   I nussed him on my knees;
+An' Mike browt home at lowsin'-time
+   Wild rasps an' strawberries.
+We used to sit on t' door-sill
+   I' t' leet o' t' harvist-moon,
+While our lile Doad would clench his fists
+   An' suck his toes an' croon.
+
+But when t' mell-sheaf(2) was gotten,
+   An' back-end days set in,
+Wi' frost at neet an' roke(3) by day,
+   His face gate pinched an' thin.
+We niver knew what ailed him,
+   He faded like a floor,
+He faded same as skies'll fade
+   When t' sun dips into t' moor.
+
+Church bells on Kersmas mornin'
+   Rang out so merrily,
+But cowd an' dreesome were our hearts:
+   We knew lile Doad must dee.
+He lay so still in his creddle,
+   An' slowly he dwined away,
+While(4) I laid two pennies on his een
+   On Holy Innocents' Day.
+
+The Lord's bin hard on me, Sir,
+   He's stown my barn away.
+O, dowly, dowly was that neet
+   He stole lile Doad away!
+
+
+1. Briskly   2. The last sheaf of the harvest
+3. Mist   4. Until
+
+
+
+
+His Last Sail
+
+
+         GRANDFATHER
+T' watter is blue i' t' offin',
+   An' blue is t' sky aboon;
+Swallows are settin' sou'ard,
+   An' wanin' is t' harvist moon.
+Ower lang I've bin cowerin' idle
+   I' my neuk by t' fire-side;
+I'll away yance mair i' my coble,
+   I'll away wi' t' ebbin' tide.
+
+           MALLY
+Nay, Gransir, thoo moant gan sailin',
+   Thoo mun bide at yam to-neet;
+At eighty-two thoo sudn't think
+   O' t' Whitby fishin' fleet.
+North cone's up on t' flagstaff,
+   There's a cap-full o' wind i' t' bay;
+T' waves wap loud on t' harbour bar,
+   Thoo can hardlins fish to-day.
+
+         GRANDFATHER
+It's leansome here i' t' hoose, lass,
+   When t' fisher-folk's at sea,
+Watchin' yon eldin(1) set i' t' fire
+   Bleeze up, dwine doon, an' dee.
+An' t' sea-gulls they coom flyin'
+   Aboon our red roof-tiles;
+They call me doon the chimley,
+   An' laugh at other whiles.
+
+"There's mack'rel oot at sea, lad,"
+   Is what I hear 'em say;
+"Their silver scales are glestrin' breet,
+   Look oot across the bay;
+But mack'rel's not for thee, lad,
+   For thoo's ower weak to sail."
+My een wi' saut tears daggle(2)
+   When I hear their mockin' tale.
+
+	         MALLY
+Dean't mind their awfish(3) skreekin',
+   They 'tice folk to their death;
+Then ride aboon yon billows
+   An' gloor at them beneath.
+They gloor at eenless corpses
+   Slow driftin' wi' the tide,
+Deep doon amang the weedy wrack,
+   Wheer t' scaly fishes glide.
+
+         GRANDFATHER
+I'd fain lig wi' my kinsfolk,
+   Fore-elders, brothers, sons,
+Wheer t' star-fish shine like twinklin' leets,
+   An' t' spring-tide watter runs.
+T' kirkyard's good for farm-folk,
+   That ploo an' milk their kye,
+But I could sleep maist soondly
+   Wheer t' ships gan sailin' by.
+
+T' grave is whisht(4) an' foulsome,
+   But clean is t' saut sea-bed;
+Thoo can hark to t' billows dancin'
+   To t' tune o' t' tide owerhead.
+Yon wreaths o' floors i' t' kirkyard
+   Sean wither an' fade away,
+But t' sea-tang wreaths round a droon'd man's head
+   Will bide while Judgment Day.
+
+Sae fettle(5) my owd blue coble,
+   I kessen'd her "Mornin' Star,"
+An' I'll away through t' offin'
+   Wheer t' skooals o' mack'rel are.
+Thoo can look for my boat i' t' harbour,
+   When thoo's said thy mornin' psalm;
+Mebbe I'll fill my fish-creel full--
+   Mebbe I'll nean coom yam.
+
+
+1.  Kindling  2. Grow moist
+3. Elfish  4.  Silent  5. Get ready
+
+
+
+
+ONE YEAR OLDER
+
+
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
+   That's what I sal awlus say.
+Draw thy chair a little nearer,
+   Put yon stockin's reight away.
+Thou hast done enough i' thy time,
+   Tewed i' t' house an' wrowt at loom;
+Just for once thou mun sit idle,
+   Feet on t' hear'stone, fingers toom.(1)
+
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
+   So I promised when we wed.
+Then thy een were glest'rin' clearer
+   Nor the stars aboon us spread.
+If they're dimmer now, they're tend'rer,
+   An' yon wrinkles on thy face
+Tell a lesson true as t' Bible,
+   Speik o' charity an' grace.
+
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
+   We've supped sorrow, tasted joy,
+But our love has grown sincerer,
+   Gethered strength nowt can destroy.
+Love is like an oak i' t' forest,
+   Ivery yeer it adds a ring;
+Love is like yon ivin tendrils,
+   Ivery day they closer cling.
+
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
+   Time's the shuttle, life's the yarn.
+Have thy crosses seemed severer
+   'Cause thou niver had a barn?
+Mebbe I sud not have loved thee
+   Hauf so weel, if I mud share
+All our secret thowts wi' childer,
+   Twinin' round my owd arm-chair.
+
+One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
+   'Tis our gowden weddin' day.
+There sal coom no gaumless fleerer
+   To break in upon our play.
+Look, I've stecked(2) wer door and window
+   Let me lap thee i' my arms;
+Hushed to-neet be ivery murmur,
+   While my kiss thy pale face warms.
+
+
+1. Empty.  2. Latched
+
+
+
+
+The Hungry Forties
+
+
+Thou wants my vote, young man wi' t' carpet-bags,
+   Weel, sit thee down, an' hark what I've to say.
+It's noan so varry oft wer kitchen flags
+   Are mucked by real live lords down Yelland(1) way.
+
+I've read thy speyks i' t' paper of a neet,
+   Thou lets a vast o' words flow off thy tongue;
+Thou's gotten facts an' figures, plain as t' leet,
+   An' argiments to slocken(2) owd an' young.
+
+But what are facts an' figures 'side o' truths
+   We've bowt wi' childer' tears an' brokken lives?
+An' what are argiments o' cockered youths
+   To set agean yon groans o' caitiff(3) wives?
+
+'Twere "hungry forties" when I were a lad,
+   An' fowks were clemmed, an' weak i' t' airm an' brain;
+We lived on demick'd(4) taties, bread gone sad,
+   An' wakkened up o' neets croodled(5) wi' pain.
+
+When t' quartern loaf were raised to one and four,
+   We'd watter-brewis, swedes stown out o' t' field;
+Farmers were t' landlords' jackals, an' us poor
+   Tewed in Egyptian bondage unrepealed.
+
+I mind them times when lads marched down our street
+   Wi' penny loaves on pikes all steeped i' blooid;
+"It's breead or blooid," they cried. "We've nowt to eat;
+   To Hell wi' all that taxes t' people's fooid."
+
+There was a papist duke(6) that com aleng
+   Wi' curry powders, an' he telled our boss
+That when fowk's bellies felt pination's teng,(7)
+   For breead, yon stinkin' powders they mun soss.(8)
+
+I went to wark when I were eight yeer owd;
+   I tended galloways an' sammed up coils.
+'Twere warm i' t' pit, aboon 't were despert cowd,
+   An' clothes were nobbut spetches,(9) darns an' hoils.
+
+Thro' six to eight I worked, then two mile walk
+   Across yon sumpy(10) fields to t' kitchen door.
+I've often fainted, face as white as chalk,
+   Then fall'n lang-length upon wer cobble-floor.
+
+My mother addled seven and six a week,
+   Slavin' all t' day at Akeroyd's weyvin'-shed:
+Fayther at t' grunstone wrowt, while he fell sick;
+   Steel filin's gate intul his lungs, he said.
+
+I come thee then no thank for all thy speyks,
+   Thou might as weel have spared thisen thy pains;
+I see no call to laik at ducks an' drakes
+   Wi' t' bitter truth that's burnt intul our brains.
+
+"Corn laws be damned," said dad i' forty-eight;
+   "Corn laws be damned," say I i' nineteen-five.
+Tariff reform, choose, how, will have to wait
+   Down Yelland way, so lang as I'm alive.
+
+If thou an' thine sud tax us workers' fooid,
+   An' thrust us back in our owd misery,
+May t' tears o' our deead childer thin thy blooid,
+   An' t' curse o' t' "hungry forties" leet on thee.
+
+
+1.  Elland.   2. Satiate  3. Infirm   4 Diseased.
+5. Bent double  6. Duke of Norfolk   7 Sting.
+8. Sip. 9. Patches  10. Swampy.
+
+
+
+
+
+The Flowers of Knaresborough Forest
+
+
+But now they are moaning, on ilka green loaning
+The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.
+	                 Jane Elliot (1727-1805).
+
+
+O! day-time is weary, an' dark o' dusk dreary
+   For t' lasses i' t' mistal, or rakin' ower t' hay;
+When t' kye coom for strippin', or t' yowes for their	clippin',
+   We think on our sowdiers now gone reet away.
+
+The courtin'-gate's idle, nae lad flings his bridle
+   Ower t' yak-stoup,(1) an' sleely cooms seekin' his may;
+The trod by the river is green as a sliver,(2)
+   For the Flowers o' the Forest have all stown away.
+
+At Marti'mas hirin's, nae ribbins, nae tirin's,
+   When t' godspenny's(3) addled, an' t' time's coom for play;
+Nae Cheap-Jacks, nae dancin', wi' t' teamster' clogs prancin ,
+   The Flowers o' the Forest are all flown a way.
+
+When at neet church is lowsin', an' t' owd ullet is rousin'
+   Hissel i' our laithe,(4) wheer he's slummered all t' day,
+Wae's t' heart! but we misses our lads' saftest kisses,
+   Now the Flowers o' the Forest are gone reet away.
+
+Ploo-lads frae Pannal have crossed ower the Channel,
+   Shipperds frae Fewston have taen the King's pay,
+Thackrays frae Dacre have sold ivery acre;
+   Thou'll finnd ne'er a delver(5) frae Haverah to Bray.
+
+When t' north wind is howlin', an' t' west wind is yowlin',
+   It's for t' farm lads at sea that us lasses mun pray;
+Tassey-Will o' t' new biggin, keepin' watch i' his riggin ,
+   Lile Jock i' his fo'c'sle, torpedoed i' t' bay.
+
+Mony a lass now is weepin' for her marrow that's sleepin',
+   Wi' nae bield for his corp but the cowd Flanthers clay;
+He'll ne'er lift his limmers,(6) he'll ne'er wean his gimmers(7):
+   Ay, there's Flowers o' the Forest are withered away.
+
+
+1. Oak-post.	2. Branch of a leafing tree.
+3. Earnest money.	4 Barn.
+5. Quarryman  6. Wagon-shafts  7. Ewe lambs
+
+
+
+
+THE MILLER BY THE SHORE
+AN EAST COAST CHANTY
+
+
+The miller by the shore am I,
+   A man o' despert sense;
+I've fotty different soorts o' ways
+   O' addlin' honest pence.
+Good wheat and wuts and barley-corns
+   My mill grinds all t' day lang ;
+Frae faave 'o t' morn while seven o' t' neet
+   My days are varra thrang.
+
+Chorus
+I mill a bit, I till a bit,
+   I dee all maks 'o jobs,
+Frae followin' ploos and hollowin' coos
+   To mendin' chairs and squabs.(1)
+Oh! folks they laugh and girn at me,
+	I niver tak it ill;
+If I's the Jack 'o ivery trade,
+	They all bring grist to t' mill.
+
+I tend my hunderd yakker farm,
+   An' milk my Kyloe kye.
+I've Lincoln yowes an' Leicester tups
+   An' twenty head 'o wye.(2)
+I've stirks to tak to Scarbro' mart,
+   I've meers for farmers' gigs;
+And oh! I wish that you could see
+   My laatle sookin' pigs.
+
+	I mill a bit. ...
+
+When summer days graws lang an' breet,
+	Oot cooms my "Noah's Arks,"
+Wheer city folk undriss theirsels
+	An' don my bathin' sarks.(3)
+An' when they git on land agean,
+	I rub' em smooth as silk;
+Then bring' em oot, to fill their weeams,
+	My parkin ceakes an' milk.
+
+	I mill a bit. ...
+
+I pike(4) stray timmer on the shore,
+   An' cuvins(5) on the scar;
+I know wheer crabs 'll hugger up,(6)
+   I know wheer t' lobsters are.
+I've cobles fishin' oot i' t' bay,
+   For whitings, dabs and cods,
+I've herrin' trawls and salmon nets,
+   I've hooks and lines and rods.
+
+	I mill a bit. ...
+
+On darksome neets, back-end 'o t' yeer,
+   I like another sport;
+I row my boat wheer t' lugger lies,
+   Coom frae some foreign port;
+A guinea in a coastguard's poke
+   Will mak him steck his een ;
+So he says nowt when I coom yam
+   Wi' scent and saccharine.
+
+	I mill a bit.	...
+
+
+1. Settles.	2. Heifers.	3 .Shirts.
+4. Pick up  5  Periwinkles
+6. Crowd together
+
+
+
+
+
+The Bride's Homecomming
+
+
+A weddin', a woo,
+A clog an' a shoe,
+      A pot full o' porridge; away we go!
+         A Yorkshire Wedding-Rhyme.
+
+
+Thoo mun hod on tight, my darlin',
+   We've mony a beck to cross;
+Twix' thy father's hoose an' mine, love,
+   There's a vast o' slacks an' moss.
+But t' awd mare, shoo weant whemmle(1)
+   Though there's twee on her back astride;
+Shoo's as prood as me, is Snowball,
+   Noo I's fetchin' heame my bride.
+      A weddin', a woo,
+      A clog an' a shoe,
+   A pot full o' porridge; away we go!
+
+Gow! but I feel sae leetsome,
+   Sin I've lived to see this day;
+My heart is like a blackbod's
+   Efter a shoor i' May.
+I' t' sky aboon nea lairock
+   Has sae mich reet to sing
+As I have, noo I've wedded
+   T' lile lass o' Fulsa Ing.
+      A weddin', a woo,
+      A clog an' a shoe,
+   A pot full o' porridge; away we go!
+
+Does ta hear yon watter bubblin',
+   Deep doon i' t' moorland streams?
+It soonds like childer' voices
+   When they're laughin' i' their dreams.
+An' look at yon lang-tailed pyots,(2)
+   There s three on 'em, I'll uphod!
+Folks say that three's for a weddin',
+   Ay, a pyot's a canny bod.
+      A weddin', a woo,
+      A clog an' a shoe,
+   A pot full o' porridge; away we go!
+
+I love to feel thee clingin'
+   Wi' thy hands aroond my breast;
+Thy bosom's leetly heavin',
+   Like a ship on t' saut waves' crest.
+An' thy breath is sweet as t' breezes,
+   That cooms ower t' soothern hills,
+When t' violet blaws i' t' springtime
+   Wi' t' yollow daffydills.
+      A weddin', a woo,
+      A clog an' a shoe,
+   A pot full o' porridge; away we go!
+
+Is ta gittin' tired, my honey,
+   We'll be heame i' hafe an hour;
+Thoo'll see our hoose an' staggarth,
+   Wi' t' birk-trees bendin' ower.
+There's a lillilow(3) i' our cham'er
+   To welcome my viewly bride ;
+An' sean we'll be theer oorsels, lass,
+   Liggin' cosy side by side.
+      A weddin', a woo,
+      A clog an' a shoe,
+   A pot full o' porridge; away we go!
+
+
+1 Stumble.	2 Magpies.  3. Light
+
+
+
+
+The Artist
+
+
+Lang-haired gauvies(1) coom my way, drawin' t' owd abbey an' brig,
+   All their crack is o' Art-staities an' picturs an' paints;
+Want to put me on their canvas, donned i' my farmer's rig,
+   Tell me I'm pairt o' t' scenery, stained-glass windeys an' saints.
+
+I reckon I'm artist an' all, though I niver gave it a thowt;
+   Breeder o' stock is my trade, Mike Pullan o' t' Abbey Close.
+What sud a farmer want wi' picturs that brass has bowt?
+   All his art is i' t' mistal, wheer t' heifers are ranged i' rows.
+
+Look at yon pedigree bull, wi' an eye as breet as a star,
+   An' a coat that shines like velvet, when it catches t' glent o' t' sun;
+Hark to him bealin' for t' cows, wi' a voice like t' thunner on t' scar,
+   Watch them sinews i' t' neck, ripplin' wi' mischief an' fun.
+
+Three generations o' men have lived their lives for yon bull,
+   Tewed at his keep all t' day, dreamed o' his sleekness all t' neet;
+Moulded the bugth o' his buttocks, fashioned the breadth o' his skull--
+   Ivery one on 'em artists, sculptors o' butcher's meat.
+
+What are your Rubens and Vandykes anent the craft that is Breed?
+   Anent the art that is Life, what's figures o' bronze or stone?
+Us farmers 'll mould you models, better nor statties that's deead--
+   Strength that is wick i' the flesh, Beauty that's bred i' the bone.
+
+Bailiff's doughter at t' Hollins,
+      shoo's Breed, an' shoo's Life, an shoo's Art,
+   Bred frae a Westmorland statesman out o' a Craven lass;
+Carries hersen like a queen when shoo drives to markit i' t' cart:
+   Noan o' yon scraumy-legged(2) painters sal iver git howd o' her brass
+
+Picturs is reight enough for fowks cluttered up i' Leeds,
+	Fowks that have ne'er hannled beasts, can't tell a tup frae a yowe ;
+But the art for coontry lads is the art that breathes an' feeds,
+	An' t' finest gallery i' t' worrld is a Yorkshire cattle-show.
+
+
+1. Simpletons.  2. Spindle-legged
+
+
+
+
+MARRA TO BONNEY
+
+
+What would you do wi' a doughter--
+   Pray wi' her, bensil(1) her, flout her?--
+Say, what would you do wi' a daughter
+   That's marra to Bonney(2) hissen?
+
+I prayed wi' her first, of a Sunday,
+   When chapil was lowsin' for t' neet;
+An' I laid all her cockaloft marlocks(3)
+   'Fore th' Almighty's mercy-seat.
+When I looked for her tears o' repentance,
+   I jaloused(4) that I saw her laugh;
+An' she said that t' Powers o' Justice
+   Would scatter my words like chaff.
+
+Then I bensilled her hard in her cham'er,
+   As I bensils owd Neddy i' t' cart.
+If prayers willent teach thee, my dolly,
+   Happen whip-stock will mak thy tears start.
+But she stood there as chuff as a mawmet,(5)
+   Not one chunt'rin(6) word did she say:
+But she hoped that t' blooid o' t' martyrs
+   Would waish all my sins away.
+
+Then I thought, mebbe floutin' will mend her;
+   So I watched while she cam out o' t' mill,
+And afore all yon Wyke lads an' lasses
+   I fleered at her reight up our hill.
+She winced when she heeard all their girnin',
+   Then she whispered, a sob i' her throat:
+"I reckon I'll noan think o' weddin'
+   While women are given their vote."
+
+What would you do wi' a doughter--
+   Pray wi' her, bensil her, flout her?--
+Say, what would you do wi' a daughter
+   That's marra to Bonney hissen?
+
+
+1. Beat.	 2. A match for Bonaparte.
+3. Conceited tricks. 4. Suspected.
+5. As proud as an idol.	6. Grumbling.
+
+
+
+
+Mary Mecca
+
+
+Mary Mecca,(1) Mary Mecca,
+   I'm fain to see thee here,
+A Devon lass to fill my glass
+   O' home-brewed Yorkshire beer.
+I awlus said that foreigners
+   Sud niver mel on me;
+But sike a viewly face as thine
+   I'd travel far to see.
+
+Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,
+   I'm sad to see thee here,
+Wheer t' wind blaws hask(2) frae Norway
+   I' t' spring-time o' the year.
+I'd liever finnd thee sittin',
+   Wi' a bowl o' cruds an' cream,
+Wheer t' foxglove bells ring through the dells,
+   Anent a Dartmoor stream.
+
+Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,
+   The way thou snods thy hair,
+It maks my heart go dancin'
+   Like winnlestraws(3) i' t' air.
+One neet I heard thee singin',
+   As I cam home frae toon;
+'Twas sweet as curlews makkin' love
+   Agean a risin' moon.
+
+Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,
+   I dream o' thy gray een;
+I think on all I've wasted,
+   An' what I might hae been.
+I'm nowt but muck off t' midden,
+   So all I axe is this:
+Just blaw the froth from off my yal(4);
+   'Twill seem most like a kiss.
+
+
+1. Metcalfe. 2. Keenly
+3. Whisps of grass or straw  4. Ale
+
+
+
+
+The Local Preacher
+
+
+Ay, I'm a ranter, so at least fowks say;
+   Happen they'd tell t' same tale o' t' postle Paul.
+I've ranted fifty yeer, coom first o' May,
+   An' niver changed my gospil through 'em all.
+
+There's nowt like t' Blooid o' t' Lamb an' t' Fire o' Hell
+   To bring a hardened taistril(1) to his knees;
+If fowks want more nor that, then thou can tell
+   'Em straight, I've got no cure for their disease.
+
+I willent thole this New Theology
+   That blends up Hell wi' Heaven, sinners wi' saints
+For black was black when I turned Methody,
+   An' white was white, i' souls as weel as paints.
+
+That's awlus t' warp an' t' weft o' my discourse,
+   An' awlus will be, lang as I can teach;
+If fowks won't harken tul it, then, of course,
+   They go to church and hear t' owd parson preach.
+
+His sarmon's like his baccy, sweet an' mild;
+   Fowk's ommost hauf asleep at t' second word.
+By t' Mass! they're wick as lops,(2) ay, man an' child,
+   When I stan' up an' wrastle wi' the Lord.
+
+Nay, I'm not blamin' parson, I'll awant(3);
+   Preachin's his trade, same way as millin's mine.
+I' trade you've got to gie fowks what they want,
+   An' that is mostly sawcum(4) meshed reet fine.
+
+Tak squire theer; he don't want no talk o' Hell,
+   He likes to hark to t' parable o' t' teares ;
+He reckons church is wheat that's gooid to sell,
+   But chapil's nobbut kexes,(5) thorns, an' brears.
+
+Squire's lasses, they can't do wi' t' Blooid o' t' Lamb
+   They're all for t' blooid o' t' foxes, like our Bob.
+The Lord Hissen will have to save or damn
+   Church fowks wid out me mellin' on(6) His job.
+
+But gie me chapil lasses gone astray,
+   Or lads that cooms home druffen of a neet,
+An' I'll raise Cain afore I go away,
+   If I don't gie 'em t' glent o' t' Gospil leet.
+
+I'll mak 'em sit on t' penitential stooils,
+   An' roar as loud as t' buzzer down at t' mill;
+I'll mak 'em own that they've bin despert fooils,
+   Wi' all their pride o' life a bitter pill.
+
+I've mony texts, but all to one point keep,
+   Same as all t' becks flow down to one saut sea:
+Damnation an' salvation, goats an' sheep--
+   That's t' Bible gospil that thou'll get thro' me.
+
+
+1. Reprobate.	2. Lively as fleas.	3. Warrrant.
+4. Sawdust. 5. Dried stems of weeds 6. Meddling with
+
+
+
+
+THE COURTING GATE
+
+
+There's dew upon the meadows,
+   An' bats are wheelin' high;
+The sun has set an hour sin',
+   An' evenin' leet's i' t' sky.
+Swalows i' t' thack are sleepin ,
+   Neet-hawks are swift on t' wing,
+An' grey moths gethers honey
+   Amang the purple ling	.
+      O coom an' meet me, Mally,
+	    O coom an' greet me, Mally,
+   Meet me, greet me, at the courtin' gate.
+
+The fire-leet casts thy shadow
+   Owerthwart the kitchen wall;
+It's dancin' up an' doon, lass,
+   My heart does dance an' all.
+Three times I've gien oor love-call
+   To bring my bird to t' nest.
+When wilt a coom, my throstle,
+   An' shelter on my breast?
+      O coom an' meet me, Mally,
+      O coom an' greet me, Mally,
+   Meet me, greet me, at the courtin' gate.
+
+I've wrowt all t' day at t' harvist,
+   But ivery hour seemed sweet,
+Acause I thowt I'd haud thee
+   Clasped i' my airms to-neet.
+Black Bess she raked aside me
+   An' leuked at me an' smiled;
+I telled her I loved Mally,
+   It made her despert wild.
+      O coom an' meet me, Mally,
+      O coom an' greet me, Mally,
+   Meet me, greet me, at the courtin' gate.
+
+Thy shadow's gone frae t' kitchen,
+   T' hoose-door is oppened wide.
+It's she, my viewly Mally,
+   The lass I'll mak my bride.
+White lilies in her garden,
+   Fling oot your scent i' t' air,
+An' mingle breath wi' t' roses
+   I've gethered for her hair.
+      O let me haud thee, Mally,
+      O let me faud thee, Mally,
+   Haud thee, faud thee, at the courtin' gate.
+
+
+
+
+A SONG OF THE YORKSHIRE DALES
+
+
+A song I sing o' t' Yorkshire dales,
+   That winnd frae t' moors to t' sea;
+Frae t' breast o' t' fells, wheer t' cloud-rack sails,
+   Their becks flow merrily.
+Their banks are breet wi' moss an' broom,
+   An' sweet is t' scent o' t' thyme;
+You can hark to t' bees' saft, dreamy soom(1)
+   I' t' foxglove bells an' t' lime.
+
+                Chorus
+O! Swawdill's good for horses, an' Wensladill for cheese,
+   An' Airedill fowk are busy as a bee;
+      But wheersoe'er I wander,
+      My owd heart aye grows fonder
+O Whardill, wheer I'll lig me down an' dee.
+
+Reet bonny are our dales i' March,
+   When t' curlews tak to t' moors,
+There's ruddy buds on ivery larch,
+   Primroses don their floors.
+But bonnier yet when t' August sun
+   Leets up yon plats o' ling;
+An' gert white fishes lowp an' scun,(2)
+   Wheer t' weirs ower t' watter hing.
+
+O! Swawdills good...
+
+By ivery beck an abbey sleeps,
+   An' t' ullet is t' owd prior.
+A jackdaw thruf each windey peeps,
+   An' bigs his nest i' t' choir.
+In ivery dale a castle stands--
+   Sing, Clifford, Percy, Scrope!--
+They threaped amang theirsels for t' lands,
+   But fowt for t' King or t' Pope.
+
+O! Swawdill's good...
+
+O! Eastward ho! is t' song o' t' gales,
+   As they sweep ower fell an' lea;
+And Eastward ho! is t' song o' t' dales,
+   That winnd frae t' moors to t' sea.
+Coom winter frost, coom summer druft,
+   Their watters munnot bide;
+An' t' rain that's fall'n when bould winds soughed
+   Sal iver seawards glide.
+
+O! Swawdill' s good...
+
+
+1. Hum.	2 Leap and dart away.
+
+
+
+
+Fieldfares
+
+
+Fieldfares, bonny fieldfares, feedin' 'mang the bent,
+Wheer the sun is shinin' through yon cloud's wide rent,
+      Welcoom back to t' moorlands,
+      Frae Norway's fells an' shorelands,
+Welcoom back to Whardill,(1) now October's ommost spent.
+
+Noisy, chackin' fieldfares, weel I ken your cry,
+When i' flocks you're sweepin' ower the hills sae high:
+      Oft on trees you gethers,
+      Preenin' out your feathers,
+An' I'm fain to see your coats as blue as t' summer sky.
+
+Curlews, larks an' tewits,(2) all have gone frae t' moors,
+Frost has nipped i' t' garden all my bonny floors;
+      Roses, lilies, pansies,
+      Stocks an' yallow tansies
+Fade away, an' soon the leaves 'll clutter(3) doon i'	shoors.
+
+Here i' bed I'm liggin', liggin' day by day
+Hay-cart whemmled ower,(4) and underneath I lay;
+      I was nobbut seven,
+      Soon I'll be eleven;
+Fower times have I seen you fieldfares coom an' flee away.
+
+You'll be gone when t' swallow bigs his nest o' loam,
+April winds 'll blaw you far ower t' saut sea foam;
+      You'll not wait while May-time,
+      Summer dews an' hay-time;
+Lang afore our gerse is mawn your mates 'll call you home.
+
+Fieldfares, liltin'(5) fieldfares, you'll noan sing to me.
+Why sud you bide silent while you've crossed the sea?
+      Are you brokken-hearted,
+      Sin frae home you've parted,
+Leavin' far frae Yorkshire moors your nests i' t' tall fir tree?
+
+Storm-cock sings at new-yeer, swingin' on yon esh,
+Sings his loudest song when t' winds do beat an' lesh;
+      Robins, throstles follow,
+      An' when cooms the swalloww,
+All the birds 'll chirm to see our woodlands green an' nesh.
+
+Fieldfares, bonny fieldfares, I'll be gone 'fore you;
+I'm sae weak an' dowly, hands are thin an' blue.
+      Pain is growin' stranger,
+      As the neets get langer.
+Will you miss my face at whiles, when t' owd yeer's changed to t' new?
+
+
+1. Wharfdale  2. Peewits   3.Huddle
+4. Upset   5. Light-hearted
+
+
+
+
+THE FLOWER OF WENSLEYDALE
+
+
+She leaned o'er her latticed casement,
+   The Flower of Wensleydale;
+'Twas St Agnes Eve at midnight,
+   Through the mist the stars burnt pale.
+
+In her hand she held twelve sage-leaves,
+   Plucked in her garden at noon;
+And over them she had whispered thrice
+   The spell of a mystic rune.
+
+For many had come a-wooing
+   The maid with the sloe-blue eyes;
+Fain would she learn of St Agnes
+   To whom should fall the prize.
+
+They said she must drop a sage-leaf
+   At each stroke of the midnight hour;
+Then should the knight of her father's choice
+Obey the summons of her voice,
+   And appear 'neath her oriel'd bowwer.
+
+To the holy virgin-martyr
+   She lifted her hands in prayer;
+Then she watched the rooks that perched asleep
+   In the chestnut branches bare.
+
+At last on the frosty silence
+   There rang out the midnight chime;
+And the hills gave back in echoes
+   The knell of the dying time.
+
+She held her breath as she counted
+   The beats of the chapel bell;
+At every stroke of the hammer
+   A sage-leaf fluttered and fell,
+   Slowly fluttered and fell.
+
+Her heart stood still a moment,
+   As the last leaf touched the ground;
+And her hand went swift to her maiden breast,
+   For she heard a far-off sound;
+
+'Twas the sound of a horseman spurring
+   His steed through the woodland glade;
+And ever the sound drew nearer,
+And the footfalls echoed clearer,
+   Till before her bower they stayed.
+
+She strained her eyes to discover,
+   By the light of a ghostly moon,
+Who was the knight had heard and obeyed
+   The hest of the mystic rune.
+
+But naught could she see from her casement,
+   Save a man on a coal-black steed;
+For his mantle was muffled about him,
+   His blazon she could not read.
+
+She crossed herself and she whispered--
+   Her voice was faint but clear--
+"Oh! Who art thou that darest ride,
+Through the aspen glade, by the river's side,
+   My chamber window near?
+
+"Say, art thou the lord of Bainbridge,
+   Or Gervase of Bolton Hall,
+That comest so late on St Agnes Eve
+   Within my manor wall?"
+
+"I am not the lord of Bainbridge,
+   Nor Gervase of Bolton Hall,
+But I marked the light in thy casement,
+   And I saw the sage-leaves fall,
+   Flutter awhile and fall."
+
+"Camest thou over the moorlands,
+   Or camest thou through the dale?
+Speak no guile to a witless maid,
+   But tell me a soothfast tale."
+
+"I came not over the moorlands,
+   Nor along the dale did ride;
+But thou seeest thy plighted lover,
+   That has come to claim his bride."
+
+"Say, art thou knight or yeoman,
+   Of noble or simple birth?
+Fain would I know thy lineage,
+   Thy prowess and thy worth."
+
+"Nor knight nor lowly yeoman,
+   But a mighty king am I;
+Bold vassals do my bidding,
+   And on mine errands hie.
+
+"They come to court and castle,
+   They climb the palace stairs;
+Nor pope nor king may entrance bar
+   To him my livery wears."
+
+"But why should a king so mighty
+   Pay court to a simple maid?
+My father's a knight of low degree,
+No princely realm he holds in fee,
+No proud-foot damsels wait on me:
+   Thy steps have surely strayed."
+
+"No step of mine hath wandered
+   From the goal of my desires;
+'Tis on thee my hopes are centred,
+   'Tis to thee my heart aspires.
+
+"I love thee for thy beauty,
+   I love thee for thy grace,
+I love thee for the dancing lights
+   That gleam in thy moon-lit face:
+And these I deem a peerless dower
+   To win a king's embrace."
+
+"One boon, O royal lover,
+   I ask on St Agnes Day;
+I fain would gaze on thy visage fair
+   Ere with thee I steal away.
+
+"Unmuffle thou the mantle
+   That hides thee like a pall;
+And let the purple trappings
+   From off thy shoulders fall."
+
+Slowly he loosed the mantle,
+   And showed his face beneath.
+The lights went out in the maiden's eyes;
+One swooning word she breathed to the skies:
+   The gaunt hills echoed "Death."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext Songs of the Ridings, by F. W. Moorman
+