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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3232-0.txt b/3232-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4500780 --- /dev/null +++ b/3232-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2724 @@ +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. 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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’ 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’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’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—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. +</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—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 +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +to watch<br/> +The Master work, and catch<br/> +Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool’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 “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. +</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’ Bob’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 +“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. +</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, “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 <i>Faerie Queene</i> “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 <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’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.”<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—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.”<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 +“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: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Bring us in no capon’s flesh, for that is often dear,<br/> +Nor bring us in no duck’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’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: +</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’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 <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’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. +</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’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.” +</p> + +<p> +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! +</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’s poetic +diction—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 +“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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-4" id="fn-4"></a> <a href="#fnref-4">[4]</a> +“York Plays”: <i>The Building of the Ark</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>A Dalesman’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’s hard when fowks can’t finnd their wark<br/> + Wheer they’ve bin bred an’ born;<br/> +When I were young I awlus thowt<br/> + I’d bide ’mong t’ roots an’ corn.<br/> +But I’ve bin forced to work i’ towns,<br/> + So here’s my litany:<br/> +Frae Hull, an’ Halifax, an’ Hell,<br/> + Gooid Lord, deliver me!<br/> +<br/> +When I were courtin’ Mary Ann,<br/> + T’ owd squire, he says one day:<br/> +“I’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?”<br/> +I couldn’t gie up t’ lass I loved,<br/> + To t’ town we had to flee:<br/> +Frae Hull, an’ Halifax, an’ Hell,<br/> + Gooid Lord, deliver me!<br/> +<br/> +I’ve wrowt i’ Leeds an’ Huthersfel’,<br/> + An’ addled<a href="#fn-6" name="fnref-6" id="fnref-6"><sup>[2]</sup></a> honest brass;<br/> +I’ Bradforth, Keighley, Rotherham,<br/> + I’ve kept my barns an’ lass.<br/> +I’ve travelled all three Ridin’s round,<br/> + And once I went to sea:<br/> +Frae forges, mills, an’ coalin’ boats,<br/> + Gooid Lord, deliver me!<br/> +<br/> +I’ve walked at neet through Sheffield loans,<a href="#fn-7" name="fnref-7" id="fnref-7"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> + ’T were same as bein’ i’ Hell:<br/> +Furnaces thrast out tongues o’ fire,<br/> + An’ roared like t’ wind on t’ fell.<br/> +I’ve sammed up coals i’ Barnsley pits,<br/> + Wi’ muck up to my knee:<br/> +Frae Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham,<br/> + Gooid Lord, deliver me!<br/> +<br/> +I’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’ve lived wheer fowks were stowed away<br/> + Like rabbits in a coop.<br/> +I’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’s fligged,<a href="#fn-9" name="fnref-9" id="fnref-9"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> + To t’ coontry we’ve coom back.<br/> +There’s fotty mile o’ heathery moor<br/> + Twix’ us an’ t’ coal-pit slack.<br/> +And when I sit ower t’ fire at neet,<br/> + I laugh an’ shout wi’ glee:<br/> +Frae Bradforth, Leeds, an Huthersfel’,<br/> +Frae Hull, an’ Halifax, an’ Hell,<br/> + T’ gooid Lord’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’ t’ name!<br/> +Roman sowdiers belt a fort here,<br/> + gave th’ owd place its lastin’ fame.<br/> +<br/> +We’ve bin lords o’ 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’re nobbut farmers,<br/> + mowin’ gerse an’ tentin’ kye,<br/> +But we’re proud of all we’ve stood for<br/> + i’ yon ages that’s gone by;<br/> +<br/> +Proud of all the slacks we’ve drained,<br/> + an’ proud of all the walls we’ve belt,<br/> +Proud to think we’ve bred our childer<br/> + on the ground wheer Romans dwelt.<br/> +<br/> +“Niver pairt wi’ Cambodunum,”<br/> + that’s what father used to say;<br/> +“If thou does, thou’ll coom to ruin,<br/> + beg thy breead thro’ day to day.”<br/> +<br/> +I’ll noan pairt wi’ Cambodunum,<br/> + though its roof lets in the rains,<br/> +An’ its walls wi’ age are totterin’;<br/> + Cambodunum’s i’ my veins.<br/> +<br/> +Ivery stone about the buildin’<br/> + has bin dressed by Roman hands,<br/> +An’ red blooid o’ 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’ springtime,<br/> + I leet on their buried hoard—<br/> +Coins an’ pottery, combs an’ glasses;<br/> + once I fan’ a rusty sword.<br/> +<br/> +Whisht! I’ll tell thee what I saw here<br/> + of a moon-lit winter neet—<br/> +Ghosts o’ Romans i’ their war-gear,<br/> + wheelin’ slow wi’ silent feet;<br/> +<br/> +Pale their faces, proud their bearin’,<br/> + an’ a strange gloor i’ their een,<br/> +As they marched past an’ saluted,<br/> + while th’ east wind blew snell an’ keen.<br/> +<br/> +Dalewards, dalewards, iver dalewards,<br/> + th’ hill-fowk wander yeer by yeer,<br/> +An’ they toss their heeads an’ flout me,<br/> + when they see me bidin’ here.<br/> +<br/> +I’ve one answer to their fleerin’:<br/> + “I’ll noan be a fact’ry slave,<br/> +Breathin’ poison i’ yon wark-shops,<br/> + diggin’ ivery day my grave.”<br/> +<br/> +“You may addle brass i’ plenty,<br/> + you’ll noan addle peace o’ mind;<br/> +That sal bide amang us farmers<br/> + on th’ owd hills you’ve left behind.”<br/> +<br/> +See that place down theer i’ t’ valley,<br/> + wheer yon chimleys spit out smoke?<br/> +Huthersfield is what they call it,<br/> + wheer fowk live like pigs i’ t’ poke;<br/> +<br/> +Wheer men grind their hearts to guineas,<br/> + an’ their mills are awlus thrang,<br/> +Turnin’ neet-time into day-time,<br/> + niver stoppin’ th’ whole yeer lang.<br/> +<br/> +Cambodunum up on th’ hill-tops,<br/> + Huthersfield down i’ yon dale;<br/> +One’s a place for free-born Britons,<br/> + t’other’s ommost like a jail.<br/> +<br/> +Here we live i’ t’ leet an’ sunshine,<br/> + free as larks i’ t’ 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’ glent o’ t’ moon.<br/> +<br/> +See yon motor whizzin’ past us,<br/> + ower th’ owd brig that spans our beck;<br/> +That’s what fowk call modern progress,<br/> + march o’ human intelleck.<br/> +<br/> +Modern progress, modern ruin!<br/> + March o’ int’leck, march o’ fooils!<br/> +All that cooms o’ larnin’ childer<br/> + i’ their colleges an’ schooils.<br/> +<br/> +Eddication! Sanitation!!—<br/> + teeming brass reight down a sink;<br/> +Eddication’s nowt but muckment,<br/> + sanitation’s just a stink.<br/> +<br/> +Childer mun have books an’ picturs,<br/> + bowt at t’ most expensive shops,<br/> +Teliscowps to go star-gazin’,<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’re set spring-cleanin’,<br/> + fettlin’ 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’,<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’ t’ powpit,<br/> + chicken-chisted, wake i’ t’ lung.<br/> +<br/> +Some fowk say I’m too owd-feshioned;<br/> + mebbe, they are tellin’ true:<br/> +When you’ve lived wi’ ghosts o’ Romans,<br/> + you’ve no call for owt that’s new.<br/> +<br/> +Weel I know I san’t win t’ vict’ry:<br/> + son’s agean me, dowters, wife;<br/> +Yit I’ll hold my ground bout flinchin’,<br/> + feight so long as I have life.<br/> +<br/> +An’ if t’ wick uns are agean me,<br/> + I sal feight for them that’s deead—<br/> +Roman sowdiers i’ their trenches,<br/> + lapped i’ mail thro’ foot to heead.<br/> +<br/> +Here I stand for Cambodunum,<br/> + eagle’s nest on t’ Pennine hills,<br/> +Wagin’ war wi’ modern notions,<br/> + carin’ nowt for forges, mills.<br/> +<br/> +Deeath alone sal call surrender,<br/> + stealin’ on me wi’ his hosts,<br/> +And when Deeath has won his battle,<br/> + I’ll go seek my Roman ghosts.<br/> +<br/> +Then I’ll hear their shout o’ welcome<br/> + “Here cooms Bob ’o Dick ’o Joe’s,<br/> +Bred an’ born at Cambodunum,<br/> + held th’owd fort agean his foes;<br/> +<br/> +“Fowt for ancient ways an’ customs,<br/> + ne’er to feshion bent his knee;<br/> +Oppen t’ ranks, lads, let him enter;<br/> + he’s a Roman same as we.”<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—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. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Whisht! laatle bees, sad tidings I bear,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low ;<br/> +Cauld i’ his grave ligs your maister dear,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.<br/> +Nea mair he’ll ride to t’ soond o’ t’ horn,<br/> +Nea mair he’ll fettle his sickle for t’ corn.<br/> +Nea mair he’ll coom to your skep of a morn,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.<br/> +<br/> +Muther sits cryin’ i’ t’ ingle nook,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low ;<br/> +Parson’s anent her wi’ t’ Holy Book,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.<br/> +T’ mourners are coom, an’ t’ arval is spread,<br/> +Cakes fresh frae t’ yoon,<a href="#fn-16" name="fnref-16" id="fnref-16"><sup>[1]</sup></a> an’ fine havver-bread.<br/> +But toom’<a href="#fn-17" name="fnref-17" id="fnref-17"><sup>[2]</sup></a> is t’ seat at t’ table-head,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.<br/> +<br/> +Look, conny<a href="#fn-18" name="fnref-18" id="fnref-18"><sup>[3]</sup></a> bees, I’s winndin’ black crape,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low ;<br/> +Slowly an’ sadly your skep I mun drape,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.<br/> +Else you will sicken an’ 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’l leave us wi’ t’ dawn o’ t’ +day,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.<br/> +<br/> +Sitha ! I bring you your share o’ our feast,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low;<br/> +Cakes an’ yal<a href="#fn-20" name="fnref-20" id="fnref-20"><sup>[5]</sup></a> an’ wine you mun taste,<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ low.<br/> +Gie some to t’ queen on her gowlden throne,<br/> +There’s foison to feed both worker an’ drone ;<br/> +Oh ! dean’t let us fend for oursels alone ;<br/> + Bees, bees, murmurin’ 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’d tak to leetin’ lamps;<br/> +I sud have said, I’d rayther pad<br/> + My hoof on t’ road wi’ tramps.<br/> +But sin I gate that skelp<a href="#fn-21" name="fnref-21" id="fnref-21"><sup>[1]</sup></a> i’ t’ mine,<br/> + I’m wankle<a href="#fn-22" name="fnref-22" id="fnref-22"><sup>[2]</sup></a> i’ my heead;<br/> +So gaffer said, I’d give ower wark<br/> + An’ leet town lamps atsteead.<br/> +<br/> +At first, when I were liggin’ snug<br/> + I’ bed, warm as a bee,<br/> +’T were hard to rise and get agate<br/> + As sooin as t’ clock strake three.<br/> +An’ I were flaid to hear my steps<br/> + Echoin’ on ivery wall;<br/> +An’ flaider yet when down by t’ church<br/> + Ullets would skreek and call.<br/> +<br/> +But now I’m flaid o’ nowt; I love<br/> + All unkerd<a href="#fn-23" name="fnref-23" id="fnref-23"><sup>[3]</sup></a> sounds o’ t’ neet,<br/> +Frae childer talkin’ i’ their dreams<br/> + To t’ tramp o’ p’licemen’ feet.<br/> +But most of all I love to hark<br/> + To t’ song o’ t’ birds at dawn;<br/> +They wakken up afore it gloams,<br/> + When t’ dew ligs thick on t’ lawn.<br/> +<br/> +If I feel lonesome, up I look<br/> + To t’ sky aboon my heead;<br/> +An’ theer’s yon stars all glestrin’ breet,<br/> + Like daisies in a mead.<br/> +But sometimes, when I’m glowerin’ up,<br/> + I see the Lord hissen;<br/> +He’s doutin’ all yon lamps o’ 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’s asleep,<br/> + Wi’ 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’ powder’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’s got big lamps an’ laatle lamps,<br/> + An’ lamps that twinkles red;<br/> +Im capped to see Him dout ’em all<br/> + Afore I’m back i’ bed.<br/> +But He don’t laik about His wark,<br/> + Or stop to hark to t’ birds;<br/> +He minds His business, does the Lord,<br/> + An’ wastes no gaumless words.<br/> +<br/> +I grow more like Him ivery day,<br/> + For all I walk so lame;<br/> +An’, happen, there will coom a time<br/> + I’ll beat Him at His game.<br/> +Thrang as Throp’s wife, I’ll dout my lamps<br/> + Afore He’s gotten so far;<br/> +An’ then I’ll shout—“I’ve won my race,<br/> + I’ve bet Him by a star.” +</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 “Our beck.”<br/> + Mebbe, there’s bigger streams down Ripon way;<br/> +But if thou wants clean watter, by my neck!<br/> + Thou’ll travel far for cleaner, ony day.<br/> +<br/> +Clear watter! Why, when t’ sun is up i’ t’ sky,<br/> + I’ve seen yon flickerin’ shadows o’ lile trout<br/> +Glidin’ ower t’ shingly boddom. Step thou nigh,<br/> + An’ gloor at t’ minnows dartin’ in an’ out.<br/> +<br/> +Our beck flows straight frae slacks o’ moorland peat,<br/> + An’ gethers sweetness out o’ t’ ling an’ +gorse;<br/> +At first its voice sounds weantly<a href="#fn-26" name="fnref-26" id="fnref-26"><sup>[1]</sup></a> saft an’ leet,<br/> + But graws i’ strength wi’ lowpin ower yon force.<br/> +<br/> +Then thou sud see the birds alang its banks—<br/> + Grey heronsews, that coom to fish at dawn;<br/> +Dippers, that under t’ watter play sike pranks,<br/> + An’ 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’ve seen young otters leave their holes,<br/> + An’ laik like kitlins ower the silver dew;<br/> +An’ I’ve watched squirrels climmin’ up the boles<br/> + O’ beech trees, lowpin’ leet frae beugh to beugh.<br/> +<br/> +Fowers! Why, thou’d fill thy skep,<a href="#fn-28" name="fnref-28" id="fnref-28"><sup>[3]</sup></a> lass, in an hour,<br/> + Wi’ gowlands, paigles, blobs,<a href="#fn-29" name="fnref-29" id="fnref-29"><sup>[4]</sup></a> an’ sike-like things;<br/> +We’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’weather’s fine,<br/> + Up yonder, wheer t’ owd miller’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’ watch ’em dive i’ t’ watter widoot fear.<br/> +<br/> +Ay, yon’s our brig, bent like an archer’s bow,<br/> + It’s t’ meetin’ place o’ folk frae near an’ +far;<br/> +Young ’uns coom theer wi’ lasses laughin’ low,<br/> + Owd ’uns to talk o’ politics an’ t’ war.<br/> +<br/> +It’s daft when chaps that sit i’ Parliament<br/> + Weant tak advice frae lads that talk farm-twang;<br/> +If t’ coontry goes to t’ dogs, it’s ’cause +they’ve sent<br/> + Ower mony city folk to mend what’s wrang.<br/> +<br/> +They’ve taen our day-tale men<a href="#fn-32" name="fnref-32" id="fnref-32"><sup>[7]</sup></a> to feight for t’ 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’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’ t’ +hand,<br/> + To strip wer kye, an’ ploo, an’ tew wi’ t’ +shool?<a href="#fn-36" name="fnref-36" id="fnref-36"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +But theer, I’ll nurse my threapin’ while it rains,<br/> + An’ while my rheumatiz is bad to bide;<br/> +I mun step heamwards now, through t’ yatts<a href="#fn-37" name="fnref-37" id="fnref-37"><sup>[12]</sup></a> an’ lanes,<br/> + Wheer t’ owd lass waits for me by t’ 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’d walk frae here to Skipton,<br/> + Ten mile o’ 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’ thank him for his pains.<br/> +He’s ta’en me out o’ t’ Bastile,<a href="#fn-39" name="fnref-39" id="fnref-39"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> + He’s gi’en me life that’s free:<br/> +Five shill’n a week for fuglin’<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’ firin’,<br/> + An’ flour to bak i’ t’ yoon.<a href="#fn-41" name="fnref-41" id="fnref-41"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +I’ve tea to mesh for ivery meal<br/> + An’ sup all t’ afternoon.<br/> +I’ve nowt to do but thank him,<br/> + An’ mak’ a cross wi’ t’ pen;<br/> +Five shillin’ a week for nobbut that!<br/> + Gow! he’s the jewel o’ men.<br/> +<br/> +I niver mell on pol’tics,<br/> + But I do love a lord;<br/> +He spends his savin’s like a king,<br/> + Wheer other fowks ’ll hoard.<br/> +I know a vast o’ widdies<br/> + That’s seen their seventieth year;<br/> +Lord George, he addles brass for all,<br/> + Though lots on ’t goes for beer.<br/> +<br/> +If my owd man were livin’,<br/> + He’d say as I spak true;<br/> +He couldn’t thole them yallow Rads,<br/> + But awlus voted blue.<br/> +An’ parson’s wife, shoo telled me<br/> + That we’ll sooin go to t’ poll;<br/> +I hope shoo’s reight; I’ll vote for George,<br/> + Wi’ all my heart an’ soul.<br/> +<br/> +I don’t know wheer he springs frae,<br/> + Happen it’s down Leeds way;<br/> +But ivery neet an’ mornin’<br/> + For his lang life I pray.<br/> +He’s ta’en me out o’ t’ Bastile,<br/> + He’s gi’en me life that’s free:<br/> +Five shill’n a week for fuglin’ 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’ ribbed sea-sand,<br/> + (T’ lairocks sing sae sweetly, O!)<br/> +Wheer she met a fisher-lad, net i’ t’ hand,<br/> + As t’ tide cam hoamin’<a href="#fn-42" name="fnref-42" id="fnref-42"><sup>[1]</sup></a> in.<br /> +<br /> +“Jenny, thy farm is twee mile away;<br/> + (T’ wing-mouse flits sae featly, O!)<br/> +Say, what is thou latin’<a href="#fn-43" name="fnref-43" id="fnref-43"><sup>[2]</sup></a> at dusk ’o day,<br/> + When t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.”<br /> +<br /> +“I’s latin’ waif an’ straif<a href="#fn-44" name="fnref-44" id="fnref-44"><sup>[3]</sup></a> by the feam,<br/> + (O! esh an’ yak are good for bield)<br/> +I’s latin’ timmer to big me a heam,<br/> + As t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.”<br /> +<br /> +“What for is thou latin’ waif an’ straif?<br/> + (T’ summer-gauze<a href="#fn-45" name="fnref-45" id="fnref-45"><sup>[4]</sup></a> floats ower hedge an’ field)<br/> +What for is thou biggin’ a heam an’ a hafe,<a href="#fn-46" name="fnref-46" id="fnref-46"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> + When t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in?”<br /> +<br /> +“To-morn is t’ day when I sal be wed,<br/> + (T’ bride-wain’s plenished wi’ serge an’ silk)<br/> +Jock’s anchored his boat i’ t’ lang road-stead,<br/> + An’ t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.<br /> +<br /> +To-morn we gan to t’ kirk on t’ brow,<br/> + (Nesh satin shoon as white as milk)<br/> +Fisher-folk wi’ me, an’ ploo-lads enow,<br/> + When t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.”<br /> +<br /> +“Frae thy jilted lad what gift mun thou get?<br/> + (T’ lairocks sing sae sweetly, O!))<br/> +Twee lucky-steanes, or fine ear-rings o’ jet,<br/> + When t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in?”<br /> +<br /> +“I’ll tak nayther rings nor steanes frae thee,<br/> + (T’ wing-mouse flits sae featly, O!)<br/> +But yon token I gave thee gie back to me,<br/> + Noo t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.”<br/><br /> +<br /> +“Thy token is safe i’ t’ Boggle Nook<br/> + (T’ sea-mew plains when t’ sun clims doon)<br/> +Thou can finnd it thisel, if thou’ll gan an’ look,<br/> + When t’ tide cooms hoamin’ in.”<br /> +<br /> +Young Jenny, she tripped ower t’ yallow strand,<br/> + (White ullets<a href="#fn-47" name="fnref-47" id="fnref-47"><sup>[6]</sup></a> dance i’ t’ glent o’ t’ moon)<br/> +Her step was ower leet to dimple t’ sand,<br/> + As t’ tide cam hoamin’ in.<br /> +<br /> +I’ t’ Boggle Nook lay t’ lad she sud wed;<br/> + T’ 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’ t’ mouth she had kissed wi’ blood was red,<br/> +As t’ tide cam hoamin’ in.<br /> +<br /> +Nea tear she shed, nea word she spak,<br/> + (T’ 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’ sea-wrack,<a href="#fn-50" name="fnref-50" id="fnref-50"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/> + As t’ tide cam hoamin’ in.<br /> +<br /> +They carried them heam by t’ leet o’ t’ moon,<br/> + (T’ neet-hags skreek sae dowly, O!)<br/> +Him to his grave on t’ brow aboon,<br/> +Her to yon mad-house i’ Scarbro’ toon,<br/> + Wheer t’ tide cooms hoamin’ 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’ve lived all my life i’ Keighley,<br/> + I’m a Yorkshire artisan;<br/> +An’ when I were just turned seventy<br/> + I became an Englishman.<br /> +<br /> +Nat’ralised German! nay, deng it!<br/> + I’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’ my lodge an’ my union,<br/> + An’ proud o’ my town an’ my shire;<br/> +But all t’ consans o’ t’ nation,<br/> + I left to t’ parson an’ t’ squire.<br /> +<br /> +Class-war were t’ faith that I Iived for,<br/> + I call’d all capit’lists sharks;<br/> +An’ “T’ workin’ man has no country,”<br/> + Were my Gospel accordin’ to Marx.<br /> +<br /> +When I’d lossen my job back i’ t’ eighties,<br/> + An were laikin’ for well-nigh two year,<br/> +Who said that an out-o’-wark fettler<br/> + Were costin’ 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’ my barns an’ my wife;<br/> +Shoo were ower thrang wi’ buildin’ up t’ empire<br/> + To build up a brokken life.<br /> +<br /> +“Ivery man for hissen,” shoo said,<br/> + “An’ t’ dule can catch what he can;<br/> +Labour’s cheap an’ trade’s worth more<br/> + Nor t’ life of a workin’ man.”<br /> +<br /> +When t’ country were chuff,<a href="#fn-53" name="fnref-53" id="fnref-53"><sup>[3]</sup></a> an’ boasted<br/> + That t’ sun niver set on her flags,<br/> +I thowt o’ wer back-to-back houses,<br/> + Wer childer i’ spetches<a href="#fn-54" name="fnref-54" id="fnref-54"><sup>[4]</sup></a> an’ rags,<br /> +<br /> +When t’ country drave by i’ her carriage,<br/> + Wi’ flunkies afore an’ behind,<br/> +I left her to bettermy bodies,<br/> + An’ I gav her a taste o’ my mind.<br /> +<br /> +But when shoo were liggin’ i’ t’ gutter,<br/> + Wi’ a milit’rist mob at her throit,<br/> +“Hands off her!” I cried, “shoo’s my +mother:”<br/> + An’ I doffed my cap an’ my coit.<br /> +<br /> +I’d gien ower wark at seventy,<br/> + But I gat agate once more;<br/> +“I’ll live for my country, not on her”<br/> + Were my words on t’ fettlers’ floor.<br /> +<br /> +Shoo’s putten her trust i’ us workers,<br/> + We’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’ my grandsons has fallen,<br/> + My youngest lad’s crippled i’ t’ arm;<br/> +But I’ll give her choose-what<a href="#fn-55" name="fnref-55" id="fnref-55"><sup>[5]</sup></a> shoo axes,<br/> + Afore I’ll see her tak harm.<br /> +<br /> +T’ war is a curse an’ a blessin’,<br/> + If fowks could understan’;<br/> +It’s brokken my home an’ my childer,<br/> + But it’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’ oppen t’ windey wide;<br/> +Ay, ay, I know I’m deein’,<br/> + While to-morn I’ll hardlins bide.<br/> +But yit afore all’s ovver,<br/> + An’ I lig cowd as snow,<br/> +I’ll hear once more them owd church bells<br/> + O’ Kirkby Overblow.<br /> +<br /> +Mony a neet an’ mornin’<br/> + I’ve heerd yon church bells peal;<br/> +An’ how I’ve threaped an’ cursed ’em<br/> + When I was strong an’ weel!<br/> +Gert, skelpin’, chunterin’ taistrils,<a href="#fn-56" name="fnref-56" id="fnref-56"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> + All janglin’ in a row!<br/> +Ay, mony a time I’ve cursed yon bells<br/> + O’ Kirkby Overblow.<br /> +<br /> +When you hear yon church bells ringin’,<br/> + You can’t enjoy your sin;<br/> +T’ bells clutches at your heart-strings<br/> + I’ t’ ale-house ower your gin.<br/> +At pitch-an’-toss you’re laikin’,<br/> + Down theer i’ t’ wood below;<br/> +An’ then you damn them rowpy<a href="#fn-57" name="fnref-57" id="fnref-57"><sup>[2]</sup></a> bells<br/> + O’ Kirkby Overblow.<br /> +<br /> +An’ when I’ve set off poachin’<br/> + At back-end o’ the year,<br/> +Wi’ ferret, bag an’ snickle,<a href="#fn-58" name="fnref-58" id="fnref-58"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> + Church bells have catched my ear.<br/> +“Thou’s takken t’ road to Hell, lad,<br/> + Wheer t’ pit-fire’s bumin’ slow;”<br/> +That’s what yon bells kept shoutin’ out<br/> + At Kirkby Overblow.<br /> +<br /> +But now I’m owd an’ bed-fast,<br/> + I ommost like their sound,<br/> +Ringin’ so clear i’ t’ 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’t a prayer I know;<br/> +But prayer an’ sarmon’s i’ yon bells<br/> + O’ Kirkby Overblow.<br /> +<br /> +Six boards o’ gooid stout ellum<br/> + Is what I’ll want to-morn;<br/> +Then lay me low i’ t’ church-yard<br/> + Aneath t’ owd crooked thorn.<br/> +I’ll have no funeral sarvice<br/> + When I’m browt down below,<br/> +But let ’em touzle t’ bells like mad<br/> + At Kirkby Overblow.<br /> +<br /> +I don’t know wheer I’m boun’ for,<br/> + It hardlins can be Heaven;<br/> +I’ve sinned more sins nor most men<br/> + ’Twixt one an’ seven-seven.<br/> +But this I’ll tak my oath on:<br/> + Wheeriver I mun go,<br/> +I’ll hark to t’ echoes o’ yon bells<br/> + O’ 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’s coom agean!<br/> + I’m fain to see thee here;<br/> +It’s lang sin I’ve set een on thee,<br/> + It’s ommost hauf a yeer.<br/> +What’s that thou says? Thou’s taen a wife<br/> + An’ raised a family.<br/> +It seems thou’s gien ’em all the slip<br/> + Now back-end’s drawin’ nigh.<br /> +<br /> +I mun forgi’e thee; we’re owd friends,<br/> + An’ fratchin’s not for us;<br/> +Blackbirds an’ spinks<a href="#fn-60" name="fnref-60" id="fnref-60"><sup>[1]</sup></a> I can’t abide,<br/> + At doves an’ crows I cuss.<br/> +But thou’ll noan steal my strawberries,<br/> + Or nip my buds o’ plum;<br/> +Most feather-fowl I drive away,<br/> + But thou can awlus coom.<br /> +<br /> +Ay, that’s thy place, at top o’ t’ clod,<br/> + Thy heead cocked o’ one side,<br/> +Lookin’ as far-learnt as a judge.<br/> + Is that a worrm thou’s spied?<br/> +By t’ Megs! he’s well-nigh six inch lang,<br/> + An’ reed as t’ gate i’ t’ park;<br/> +If thou don’t mesh him up a bit,<br/> + He’ll gie thee belly-wark.<br /> +<br /> +My missus awlus lets me know<br/> + I’m noan so despert thin;<br/> +If I ate sausages as thou<br/> + Eats worrms, I’d brust my skin!<br/> +Howd on! leave soom for t’ mowdiwarps<a href="#fn-61" name="fnref-61" id="fnref-61"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> + That scrats down under t’ grund ;<br/> +Of worrms, an’ mawks,<a href="#fn-62" name="fnref-62" id="fnref-62"><sup>[3]</sup></a> an’ bummel-clocks<a href="#fn-63" name="fnref-63" id="fnref-63"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> + Thou’s etten hauf a pund.<br /> +<br /> +So now thou’ll clear thy pipes an’ sing:<br/> + Grace after meat, I s’pose.<br/> +Thou looks as holy as t’ owd saint<br/> + I’ church wi’ t’ brokken nose.<br/> +Thou’s plannin’ marlocks<a href="#fn-64" name="fnref-64" id="fnref-64"><sup>[5]</sup></a> all the time,<br/> + Donned i’ thy sowdier coat;<br/> +An’ what we tak for hymns o’ praise<br/> + Is just thy fratchin’ note.<br /> +<br /> +I’ve seen thee feightin’ theer on t’ lawn,<br/> + Beneath yon laurel tree;<br/> +Thy neb was reed wi’ 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’s got no mense nor morals, Bob,<br/> + But weel I know thy charm.<br/> +Ay, thou can stand upon my spade.<br/> + I’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’s bin hard on me, Sir,<br/> + He’s stown my barn away.<br/> +O dowly, dowly was that neet<br/> + He stole lile Doad away!<br /> +<br /> +’Twas Whissuntide we wedded,<br/> + Next Easter he was born,<br/> +Just as t’ last star i’ t’ April sky<br/> + Had faded into t’ morn.<br/> +Throstles were singin, canty,<a href="#fn-66" name="fnref-66" id="fnref-66"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> + For they’d their young i’ t’ nest;<br/> +But birds don’t know a mother’s love<br/> + That howds her barn to t’ breast.<br /> +<br /> +When wark was ower i’ summer,<br/> + I nussed him on my knees;<br/> +An’ Mike browt home at lowsin’-time<br/> + Wild rasps an’ strawberries.<br/> +We used to sit on t’ door-sill<br/> + I’ t’ leet o’ t’ harvist-moon,<br/> +While our lile Doad would clench his fists<br/> + An’ suck his toes an’ croon.<br /> +<br /> +But when t’ mell-sheaf<a href="#fn-67" name="fnref-67" id="fnref-67"><sup>[2]</sup></a> was gotten,<br/> + An’ back-end days set in,<br/> +Wi’ frost at neet an’ roke<a href="#fn-68" name="fnref-68" id="fnref-68"><sup>[3]</sup></a> by day,<br/> + His face gate pinched an’ thin.<br/> +We niver knew what ailed him,<br/> + He faded like a floor,<br/> +He faded same as skies’ll fade<br/> + When t’ sun dips into t’ moor.<br /> +<br /> +Church bells on Kersmas mornin’<br/> + Rang out so merrily,<br/> +But cowd an’ dreesome were our hearts:<br/> + We knew lile Doad must dee.<br/> +He lay so still in his creddle,<br/> + An’ 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’ Day.<br /> +<br /> +The Lord’s bin hard on me, Sir,<br/> + He’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’ watter is blue i’ t’ offin’,<br/> + An’ blue is t’ sky aboon;<br/> +Swallows are settin’ sou’ard,<br/> + An’ wanin’ is t’ harvist moon.<br/> +Ower lang I’ve bin cowerin’ idle<br/> + I’ my neuk by t’ fire-side;<br/> +I’ll away yance mair i’ my coble,<br/> + I’ll away wi’ t’ ebbin’ tide. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MALLY +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Nay, Gransir, thoo moant gan sailin’,<br/> + Thoo mun bide at yam to-neet;<br/> +At eighty-two thoo sudn’t think<br/> + O’ t’ Whitby fishin’ fleet.<br/> +North cone’s up on t’ flagstaff,<br/> + There’s a cap-full o’ wind i’ t’ bay;<br/> +T’ waves wap loud on t’ harbour bar,<br/> + Thoo can hardlins fish to-day. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +GRANDFATHER +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +It’s leansome here i’ t’ hoose, lass,<br/> + When t’ fisher-folk’s at sea,<br/> +Watchin’ yon eldin<a href="#fn-70" name="fnref-70" id="fnref-70"><sup>[1]</sup></a> set i’ t’ fire<br/> + Bleeze up, dwine doon, an’ dee.<br/> +An’ t’ sea-gulls they coom flyin’<br/> + Aboon our red roof-tiles;<br/> +They call me doon the chimley,<br/> + An’ laugh at other whiles.<br/> +<br/> +“There’s mack’rel oot at sea, lad,”<br/> + Is what I hear ’em say;<br/> +“Their silver scales are glestrin’ breet,<br/> + Look oot across the bay;<br/> +But mack’rel’s not for thee, lad,<br/> + For thoo’s ower weak to sail.”<br/> +My een wi’ saut tears daggle<a href="#fn-71" name="fnref-71" id="fnref-71"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> + When I hear their mockin’ tale. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MALLY +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Dean’t mind their awfish<a href="#fn-72" name="fnref-72" id="fnref-72"><sup>[3]</sup></a> skreekin’,<br/> + They ’tice folk to their death;<br/> +Then ride aboon yon billows<br/> + An’ gloor at them beneath.<br/> +They gloor at eenless corpses<br/> + Slow driftin’ wi’ the tide,<br/> +Deep doon amang the weedy wrack,<br/> + Wheer t’ scaly fishes glide. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +GRANDFATHER +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I’d fain lig wi’ my kinsfolk,<br/> + Fore-elders, brothers, sons,<br/> +Wheer t’ star-fish shine like twinklin’ leets,<br/> + An’ t’ spring-tide watter runs.<br/> +T’ kirkyard’s good for farm-folk,<br/> + That ploo an’ milk their kye,<br/> +But I could sleep maist soondly<br/> + Wheer t’ ships gan sailin’ by.<br/> +<br/> +T’ grave is whisht<a href="#fn-73" name="fnref-73" id="fnref-73"><sup>[4]</sup></a> an’ foulsome,<br/> + But clean is t’ saut sea-bed;<br/> +Thoo can hark to t’ billows dancin’<br/> + To t’ tune o’ t’ tide owerhead.<br/> +Yon wreaths o’ floors i’ t’ kirkyard<br/> + Sean wither an’ fade away,<br/> +But t’ sea-tang wreaths round a droon’d man’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’d her “Mornin’ Star,”<br/> +An’ I’ll away through t’ offin’<br/> + Wheer t’ skooals o’ mack’rel are.<br/> +Thoo can look for my boat i’ t’ harbour,<br/> + When thoo’s said thy mornin’ psalm;<br/> +Mebbe I’ll fill my fish-creel full—<br/> + Mebbe I’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’s what I sal awlus say.<br/> +Draw thy chair a little nearer,<br/> + Put yon stockin’s reight away.<br/> +Thou hast done enough i’ thy time,<br/> + Tewed i’ t’ house an’ wrowt at loom;<br/> +Just for once thou mun sit idle,<br/> + Feet on t’ hear’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’rin’ clearer<br/> + Nor the stars aboon us spread.<br/> +If they’re dimmer now, they’re tend’rer,<br/> + An’ yon wrinkles on thy face<br/> +Tell a lesson true as t’ Bible,<br/> + Speik o’ charity an’ grace.<br/> +<br/> +One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:<br/> + We’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’ t’ 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’s the shuttle, life’s the yarn.<br/> +Have thy crosses seemed severer<br/> + ’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’ childer,<br/> + Twinin’ round my owd arm-chair.<br/> +<br/> +One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:<br/> + ’Tis our gowden weddin’ day.<br/> +There sal coom no gaumless fleerer<br/> + To break in upon our play.<br/> +Look, I’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’ 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’ t’ carpet-bags,<br/> + Weel, sit thee down, an’ hark what I’ve to say.<br/> +It’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’ve read thy speyks i’ t’ paper of a neet,<br/> + Thou lets a vast o’ words flow off thy tongue;<br/> +Thou’s gotten facts an’ figures, plain as t’ leet,<br/> + An’ argiments to slocken<a href="#fn-78" name="fnref-78" id="fnref-78"><sup>[2]</sup></a> owd an’ young.<br/> +<br/> +But what are facts an’ figures ’side o’ truths<br/> + We’ve bowt wi’ childer’ tears an’ brokken +lives?<br/> +An’ what are argiments o’ cockered youths<br/> + To set agean yon groans o’ caitiff<a href="#fn-79" name="fnref-79" id="fnref-79"><sup>[3]</sup></a> wives?<br/> +<br/> +’Twere “hungry forties” when I were a lad,<br/> + An’ fowks were clemmed, an’ weak i’ t’ airm +an’ brain;<br/> +We lived on demick’d<a href="#fn-80" name="fnref-80" id="fnref-80"><sup>[4]</sup></a> taties, bread gone sad,<br/> + An’ wakkened up o’ neets croodled<a href="#fn-81" name="fnref-81" id="fnref-81"><sup>[5]</sup></a> wi’ pain.<br/> +<br/> +When t’ quartern loaf were raised to one and four,<br/> + We’d watter-brewis, swedes stown out o’ t’ field;<br/> +Farmers were t’ landlords’ jackals, an’ us poor<br/> + Tewed in Egyptian bondage unrepealed.<br/> +<br/> +I mind them times when lads marched down our street<br/> + Wi’ penny loaves on pikes all steeped i’ blooid;<br/> +“It’s breead or blooid,” they cried. “We’ve nowt +to eat;<br/> + To Hell wi’ all that taxes t’ people’s fooid.”<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’ curry powders, an’ he telled our boss<br/> +That when fowk’s bellies felt pination’s teng,<a href="#fn-83" name="fnref-83" id="fnref-83"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> + For breead, yon stinkin’ 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’ sammed up coils.<br/> +’Twere warm i’ t’ pit, aboon ’t were despert cowd,<br/> + An’ clothes were nobbut spetches,<a href="#fn-85" name="fnref-85" id="fnref-85"><sup>[9]</sup></a> darns an’ hoils.<br/> +<br/> +Thro’ 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’ kitchen door.<br/> +I’ve often fainted, face as white as chalk,<br/> + Then fall’n lang-length upon wer cobble-floor.<br/> +<br/> +My mother addled seven and six a week,<br/> + Slavin’ all t’ day at Akeroyd’s weyvin’-shed:<br/> +Fayther at t’ grunstone wrowt, while he fell sick;<br/> + Steel filin’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’ drakes<br/> + Wi’ t’ bitter truth that’s burnt intul our brains.<br/> +<br/> +“Corn laws be damned,” said dad i’ forty-eight;<br/> + “Corn laws be damned,” say I i’ nineteen-five.<br/> +Tariff reform, choose, how, will have to wait<br/> + Down Yelland way, so lang as I’m alive.<br/> +<br/> +If thou an’ thine sud tax us workers’ fooid,<br/> + An’ thrust us back in our owd misery,<br/> +May t’ tears o’ our deead childer thin thy blooid,<br/> + An’ t’ curse o’ t’ “hungry forties” +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’ wede away.<br/> +<i>Jane Elliot</i> (1727-1805). +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +O! day-time is weary, an’ dark o’ dusk dreary<br/> + For t’ lasses i’ t’ mistal, or rakin’ ower t’ +hay;<br/> +When t’ kye coom for strippin’, or t’ yowes for their +clippin’,<br/> + We think on our sowdiers now gone reet away.<br/> +<br/> +The courtin’-gate’s idle, nae lad flings his bridle<br/> + Ower t’ yak-stoup,<a href="#fn-87" name="fnref-87" id="fnref-87"><sup>[1]</sup></a> an’ sleely cooms seekin’ 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’ the Forest have all stown away.<br/> +<br/> +At Marti’mas hirin’s, nae ribbins, nae tirin’s,<br/> + When t’ godspenny’s<a href="#fn-89" name="fnref-89" id="fnref-89"><sup>[3]</sup></a> addled, an’ t’ time’s +coom for play;<br/> +Nae Cheap-Jacks, nae dancin’, wi’ t’ teamster’ clogs +prancin ,<br/> + The Flowers o’ the Forest are all flown a way.<br/> +<br/> +When at neet church is lowsin’, an’ t’ owd ullet is +rousin’<br/> + Hissel i’ our laithe,<a href="#fn-90" name="fnref-90" id="fnref-90"><sup>[4]</sup></a> wheer he’s slummered all t’ +day,<br/> +Wae’s t’ heart! but we misses our lads’ saftest kisses,<br/> + Now the Flowers o’ 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’s pay,<br/> +Thackrays frae Dacre have sold ivery acre;<br/> + Thou’ll finnd ne’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’ north wind is howlin’, an’ t’ west wind is +yowlin’,<br/> + It’s for t’ farm lads at sea that us lasses mun pray;<br/> +Tassey-Will o’ t’ new biggin, keepin’ watch i’ his +riggin ,<br/> + Lile Jock i’ his fo’c’sle, torpedoed i’ t’ +bay.<br/> +<br/> +Mony a lass now is weepin’ for her marrow that’s +sleepin’,<br/> + Wi’ nae bield for his corp but the cowd Flanthers clay;<br/> +He’ll ne’er lift his limmers,<a href="#fn-92" name="fnref-92" id="fnref-92"><sup>[6]</sup></a> he’ll ne’er wean his +gimmers<a href="#fn-93" name="fnref-93" id="fnref-93"><sup>[7]</sup></a>:<br/> + Ay, there’s Flowers o’ 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’ despert sense;<br/> +I’ve fotty different soorts o’ ways<br/> + O’ addlin’ honest pence.<br/> +Good wheat and wuts and barley-corns<br/> + My mill grinds all t’ day lang ;<br/> +Frae faave ’o t’ morn while seven o’ t’ 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 ’o jobs,<br/> +Frae followin’ ploos and hollowin’ coos<br/> + To mendin’ 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’s the Jack ’o ivery trade,<br/> + They all bring grist to t’ mill.<br/> +<br/> +I tend my hunderd yakker farm,<br/> + An’ milk my Kyloe kye.<br/> +I’ve Lincoln yowes an’ Leicester tups<br/> + An’ twenty head ’o wye.<a href="#fn-95" name="fnref-95" id="fnref-95"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +I’ve stirks to tak to Scarbro’ mart,<br/> + I’ve meers for farmers’ gigs;<br/> +And oh! I wish that you could see<br/> + My laatle sookin’ pigs.<br/> +<br/> +I mill a bit. ...<br/> +<br/> +When summer days graws lang an’ breet,<br/> + Oot cooms my “Noah’s Arks,”<br/> +Wheer city folk undriss theirsels<br/> + An’ don my bathin’ sarks.<a href="#fn-96" name="fnref-96" id="fnref-96"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +An’ when they git on land agean,<br/> + I rub’ em smooth as silk;<br/> +Then bring’ em oot, to fill their weeams,<br/> + My parkin ceakes an’ 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’ cuvins<a href="#fn-98" name="fnref-98" id="fnref-98"><sup>[5]</sup></a> on the scar;<br/> +I know wheer crabs ’ll hugger up,<a href="#fn-99" name="fnref-99" id="fnref-99"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> + I know wheer t’ lobsters are.<br/> +I’ve cobles fishin’ oot i’ t’ bay,<br/> + For whitings, dabs and cods,<br/> +I’ve herrin’ trawls and salmon nets,<br/> + I’ve hooks and lines and rods.<br/> +<br/> +I mill a bit. ...<br/> +<br/> +On darksome neets, back-end ’o t’ yeer,<br/> + I like another sport;<br/> +I row my boat wheer t’ lugger lies,<br/> + Coom frae some foreign port;<br/> +A guinea in a coastguard’s poke<br/> + Will mak him steck his een ;<br/> +So he says nowt when I coom yam<br/> + Wi’ 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’s Homecoming</h2> + +<p class="poem"> + A weddin’, a woo,<br/> + A clog an’ a shoe,<br/> +A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!<br/> + <i>A Yorkshire Wedding-Rhyme</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Thoo mun hod on tight, my darlin’,<br/> + We’ve mony a beck to cross;<br/> +Twix’ thy father’s hoose an’ mine, love,<br/> + There’s a vast o’ slacks an’ moss.<br/> +But t’ awd mare, shoo weant whemmle<a href="#fn-100" name="fnref-100" id="fnref-100"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> + Though there’s twee on her back astride;<br/> +Shoo’s as prood as me, is Snowball,<br/> + Noo I’s fetchin’ heame my bride.<br/> + A weddin’, a woo,<br/> + A clog an’ a shoe,<br/> +A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!<br/> +<br/> +Gow! but I feel sae leetsome,<br/> + Sin I’ve lived to see this day;<br/> +My heart is like a blackbod’s<br/> + Efter a shoor i’ May.<br/> +I’ t’ sky aboon nea lairock<br/> + Has sae mich reet to sing<br/> +As I have, noo I’ve wedded<br/> + T’ lile lass o’ Fulsa Ing.<br/> + A weddin’, a woo,<br/> + A clog an’ a shoe,<br/> +A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!<br/> +<br/> +Does ta hear yon watter bubblin’,<br/> + Deep doon i’ t’ moorland streams?<br/> +It soonds like childer’ voices<br/> + When they’re laughin’ i’ their dreams.<br/> +An’ 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 ’em, I’ll uphod!<br/> +Folks say that three’s for a weddin’,<br/> + Ay, a pyot’s a canny bod.<br/> + A weddin’, a woo,<br/> + A clog an’ a shoe,<br/> +A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!<br/> +<br/> +I love to feel thee clingin’<br/> + Wi’ thy hands aroond my breast;<br/> +Thy bosom’s leetly heavin’,<br/> + Like a ship on t’ saut waves’ crest.<br/> +An’ thy breath is sweet as t’ breezes,<br/> + That cooms ower t’ soothern hills,<br/> +When t’ violet blaws i’ t’ springtime<br/> + Wi’ t’ yollow daffydills.<br/> + A weddin’, a woo,<br/> + A clog an’ a shoe,<br/> +A pot full o’ porridge; away we go!<br/> +<br/> +Is ta gittin’ tired, my honey,<br/> + We’ll be heame i’ hafe an hour;<br/> +Thoo’ll see our hoose an’ staggarth,<br/> + Wi’ t’ birk-trees bendin’ ower.<br/> +There’s a lillilow<a href="#fn-102" name="fnref-102" id="fnref-102"><sup>[3]</sup></a> i’ our cham’er<br/> + To welcome my viewly bride ;<br/> +An’ sean we’ll be theer oorsels, lass,<br/> + Liggin’ cosy side by side.<br/> + A weddin’, a woo,<br/> + A clog an’ a shoe,<br/> +A pot full o’ 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’ t’ owd abbey an’ +brig,<br/> + All their crack is o’ Art-staities an’ picturs an’ +paints;<br/> +Want to put me on their canvas, donned i’ my farmer’s rig,<br/> + Tell me I’m pairt o’ t’ scenery, stained-glass windeys +an’ saints.<br/> +<br/> +I reckon I’m artist an’ all, though I niver gave it a thowt;<br/> + Breeder o’ stock is my trade, Mike Pullan o’ t’ Abbey +Close.<br/> +What sud a farmer want wi’ picturs that brass has bowt?<br/> + All his art is i’ t’ mistal, wheer t’ heifers are ranged +i’ rows.<br/> +<br/> +Look at yon pedigree bull, wi’ an eye as breet as a star,<br/> + An’ a coat that shines like velvet, when it catches t’ glent +o’ t’ sun;<br/> +Hark to him bealin’ for t’ cows, wi’ a voice like t’ +thunner on t’ scar,<br/> + Watch them sinews i’ t’ neck, ripplin’ wi’ mischief +an’ fun.<br/> +<br/> +Three generations o’ men have lived their lives for yon bull,<br/> + Tewed at his keep all t’ day, dreamed o’ his sleekness all +t’ neet;<br/> +Moulded the bugth o’ his buttocks, fashioned the breadth o’ his +skull—<br/> + Ivery one on ’em artists, sculptors o’ butcher’s meat.<br/> +<br/> +What are your Rubens and Vandykes anent the craft that is Breed?<br/> + Anent the art that is Life, what’s figures o’ bronze or +stone?<br/> +Us farmers ’ll mould you models, better nor statties that’s +deead—<br/> + Strength that is wick i’ the flesh, Beauty that’s bred i’ +the bone.<br/> +<br/> +Bailiff’s doughter at t’ Hollins, shoo’s Breed, an’ +shoo’s Life, an shoo’s Art,<br/> + Bred frae a Westmorland statesman out o’ a Craven lass;<br/> +Carries hersen like a queen when shoo drives to markit i’ t’ +cart:<br/> + Noan o’ yon scraumy-legged<a href="#fn-104" name="fnref-104" id="fnref-104"><sup>[2]</sup></a> painters sal iver git howd o’ her +brass.<br/> +<br/> +Picturs is reight enough for fowks cluttered up i’ Leeds,<br/> + Fowks that have ne’er hannled beasts, can’t tell a tup frae a +yowe ;<br/> +But the art for coontry lads is the art that breathes an’ feeds,<br/> + An’ t’ finest gallery i’ t’ 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’ a doughter—<br/> + Pray wi’ her, bensil<a href="#fn-105" name="fnref-105" id="fnref-105"><sup>[1]</sup></a> her, flout her?—<br/> +Say, what would you do wi’ a daughter<br/> + That’s marra to Bonney<a href="#fn-106" name="fnref-106" id="fnref-106"><sup>[2]</sup></a> hissen?<br/> +<br/> +I prayed wi’ her first, of a Sunday,<br/> + When chapil was lowsin’ for t’ neet;<br/> +An’ I laid all her cockaloft marlocks<a href="#fn-107" name="fnref-107" id="fnref-107"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> + ’Fore th’ Almighty’s mercy-seat.<br/> +When I looked for her tears o’ 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’ she said that t’ Powers o’ Justice<br/> + Would scatter my words like chaff.<br/> +<br/> +Then I bensilled her hard in her cham’er,<br/> + As I bensils owd Neddy i’ t’ 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’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’ blooid o’ t’ martyrs<br/> + Would waish all my sins away.<br/> +<br/> +Then I thought, mebbe floutin’ will mend her;<br/> + So I watched while she cam out o’ t’ mill,<br/> +And afore all yon Wyke lads an’ lasses<br/> + I fleered at her reight up our hill.<br/> +She winced when she heeard all their girnin’,<br/> + Then she whispered, a sob i’ her throat:<br/> +“I reckon I’ll noan think o’ weddin’<br/> + While women are given their vote.”<br/> +<br/> +What would you do wi’ a doughter—<br/> + Pray wi’ her, bensil her, flout her?—<br/> +Say, what would you do wi’ a daughter<br/> + That’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’m fain to see thee here,<br/> +A Devon lass to fill my glass<br/> + O’ 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’d travel far to see.<br/> +<br/> +Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,<br/> + I’m sad to see thee here,<br/> +Wheer t’ wind blaws hask<a href="#fn-112" name="fnref-112" id="fnref-112"><sup>[2]</sup></a> frae Norway<br/> + I’ t’ spring-time o’ the year.<br/> +I’d liever finnd thee sittin’,<br/> + Wi’ a bowl o’ cruds an’ cream,<br/> +Wheer t’ 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’<br/> + Like winnlestraws<a href="#fn-113" name="fnref-113" id="fnref-113"><sup>[3]</sup></a> i’ t’ air.<br/> +One neet I heard thee singin’,<br/> + As I cam home frae toon;<br/> +’Twas sweet as curlews makkin’ love<br/> + Agean a risin’ moon.<br/> +<br/> +Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,<br/> + I dream o’ thy gray een;<br/> +I think on all I’ve wasted,<br/> + An’ what I might hae been.<br/> +I’m nowt but muck off t’ 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/> + ’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’m a ranter, so at least fowks say;<br/> + Happen they’d tell t’ same tale o’ t’ postle +Paul.<br/> +I’ve ranted fifty yeer, coom first o’ May,<br/> + An’ niver changed my gospil through ’em all.<br/> +<br/> +There’s nowt like t’ Blooid o’ t’ Lamb an’ +t’ Fire o’ 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/> + ’Em straight, I’ve got no cure for their disease.<br/> +<br/> +I willent thole this New Theology<br/> + That blends up Hell wi’ Heaven, sinners wi’ saints<br/> +For black was black when I turned Methody,<br/> + An’ white was white, i’ souls as weel as paints.<br/> +<br/> +That’s awlus t’ warp an’ t’ weft o’ my +discourse,<br/> + An’ awlus will be, lang as I can teach;<br/> +If fowks won’t harken tul it, then, of course,<br/> + They go to church and hear t’ owd parson preach.<br/> +<br/> +His sarmon’s like his baccy, sweet an’ mild;<br/> + Fowk’s ommost hauf asleep at t’ second word.<br/> +By t’ Mass! they’re wick as lops,<a href="#fn-116" name="fnref-116" id="fnref-116"><sup>[2]</sup></a> ay, man an’ child,<br/> + When I stan’ up an’ wrastle wi’ the Lord.<br/> +<br/> +Nay, I’m not blamin’ parson, I’ll awant<a href="#fn-117" name="fnref-117" id="fnref-117"><sup>[3]</sup></a>;<br/> + Preachin’s his trade, same way as millin’s mine.<br/> +I’ trade you’ve got to gie fowks what they want,<br/> + An’ 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’t want no talk o’ Hell,<br/> + He likes to hark to t’ parable o’ t’ teares ;<br/> +He reckons church is wheat that’s gooid to sell,<br/> + But chapil’s nobbut kexes,<a href="#fn-119" name="fnref-119" id="fnref-119"><sup>[5]</sup></a> thorns, an’ brears.<br/> +<br/> +Squire’s lasses, they can’t do wi’ t’ Blooid o’ +t’ Lamb<br/> + They’re all for t’ blooid o’ t’ foxes, like our +Bob.<br/> +The Lord Hissen will have to save or damn<br/> + Church fowks wid out me mellin’ 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’ I’ll raise Cain afore I go away,<br/> + If I don’t gie ’em t’ glent o’ t’ Gospil +leet.<br/> +<br/> +I’ll mak ’em sit on t’ penitential stooils,<br/> + An’ roar as loud as t’ buzzer down at t’ mill;<br/> +I’ll mak ’em own that they’ve bin despert fooils,<br/> + Wi’ all their pride o’ life a bitter pill.<br/> +<br/> +I’ve mony texts, but all to one point keep,<br/> + Same as all t’ becks flow down to one saut sea:<br/> +Damnation an’ salvation, goats an’ sheep—<br/> + That’s t’ Bible gospil that thou’ll get thro’ 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’s dew upon the meadows,<br/> + An’ bats are wheelin’ high;<br/> +The sun has set an hour sin’,<br/> + An’ evenin’ leet’s i’ t’ sky.<br/> +Swalows i’ t’ thack are sleepin ,<br/> + Neet-hawks are swift on t’ wing,<br/> +An’ grey moths gethers honey<br/> + Amang the purple ling .<br/> + O coom an’ meet me, Mally,<br/> + O coom an’ greet me, Mally,<br/> + Meet me, greet me, at the courtin’ gate.<br/> +<br/> +The fire-leet casts thy shadow<br/> + Owerthwart the kitchen wall;<br/> +It’s dancin’ up an’ doon, lass,<br/> + My heart does dance an’ all.<br/> +Three times I’ve gien oor love-call<br/> + To bring my bird to t’ nest.<br/> +When wilt a coom, my throstle,<br/> + An’ shelter on my breast?<br/> + O coom an’ meet me, Mally,<br/> + O coom an’ greet me, Mally,<br/> + Meet me, greet me, at the courtin’ gate.<br/> +<br/> +I’ve wrowt all t’ day at t’ harvist,<br/> + But ivery hour seemed sweet,<br/> +Acause I thowt I’d haud thee<br/> + Clasped i’ my airms to-neet.<br/> +Black Bess she raked aside me<br/> + An’ leuked at me an’ smiled;<br/> +I telled her I loved Mally,<br/> + It made her despert wild.<br/> + O coom an’ meet me, Mally,<br/> + O coom an’ greet me, Mally,<br/> + Meet me, greet me, at the courtin’ gate.<br/> +<br/> +Thy shadow’s gone frae t’ kitchen,<br/> + T’ hoose-door is oppened wide.<br/> +It’s she, my viewly Mally,<br/> + The lass I’ll mak my bride.<br/> +White lilies in her garden,<br/> + Fling oot your scent i’ t’ air,<br/> +An’ mingle breath wi’ t’ roses<br/> + I’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’ gate. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>Fieldfares</h2> + +<p class="noindent"> +Fieldfares, bonny fieldfares, feedin’ ’mang the bent,<br/> +Wheer the sun is shinin’ through yon cloud’s wide rent,<br/> + Welcoom back to t’ moorlands,<br/> + Frae Norway’s fells an’ shorelands,<br/> +Welcoom back to Whardill,<a href="#fn-121" name="fnref-121" id="fnref-121"><sup>[1]</sup></a> now October’s ommost spent.<br/> +<br/> +Noisy, chackin’ fieldfares, weel I ken your cry,<br/> +When i’ flocks you’re sweepin’ ower the hills sae high:<br/> + Oft on trees you gethers,<br/> + Preenin’ out your feathers,<br/> +An’ I’m fain to see your coats as blue as t’ summer sky.<br/> +<br/> +Curlews, larks an’ tewits,<a href="#fn-122" name="fnref-122" id="fnref-122"><sup>[2]</sup></a> all have gone frae t’ moors,<br/> +Frost has nipped i’ t’ garden all my bonny floors;<br/> + Roses, lilies, pansies,<br/> + Stocks an’ yallow tansies<br/> +Fade away, an’ soon the leaves ’ll clutter<a href="#fn-123" name="fnref-123" id="fnref-123"><sup>[3]</sup></a> doon i’ shoors.<br/> +<br/> +Here i’ bed I’m liggin’, liggin’ 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’ll be eleven;<br/> +Fower times have I seen you fieldfares coom an’ flee away.<br/> +<br/> +You’ll be gone when t’ swallow bigs his nest o’ loam,<br/> +April winds ’ll blaw you far ower t’ saut sea foam;<br/> + You’ll not wait while May-time,<br/> + Summer dews an’ hay-time;<br/> +Lang afore our gerse is mawn your mates ’ll call you home.<br/> +<br/> +Fieldfares, liltin’<a href="#fn-125" name="fnref-125" id="fnref-125"><sup>[5]</sup></a> fieldfares, you’ll noan sing to me.<br/> +Why sud you bide silent while you’ve crossed the sea?<br/> + Are you brokken-hearted,<br/> + Sin frae home you’ve parted,<br/> +Leavin’ far frae Yorkshire moors your nests i’ t’ tall fir +tree?<br/> +<br/> +Storm-cock sings at new-yeer, swingin’ on yon esh,<br/> +Sings his loudest song when t’ winds do beat an’ lesh;<br/> + Robins, throstles follow,<br/> + An’ when cooms the swalloww,<br/> +All the birds ’ll chirm to see our woodlands green an’ nesh.<br/> +<br/> +Fieldfares, bonny fieldfares, I’ll be gone ’fore you;<br/> + I’m sae weak an’ dowly, hands are thin an’ blue.<br/> + Pain is growin’ stranger,<br/> +As the neets get langer.<br/> +Will you miss my face at whiles, when t’ owd yeer’s changed to +t’ 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’ t’ Yorkshire dales,<br/> + That Winnd frae t’ moors to t’ sea;<br/> +Frae t’ breast o’ t’ fells, wheer t’ cloud-rack +sails,<br/> + Their becks flow merrily.<br/> +Their banks are breet wi’ moss an’ broom,<br/> + An’ sweet is t’ scent o’ t’ thyme;<br/> +You can hark to t’ bees’ saft, dreamy soom<a href="#fn-126" name="fnref-126" id="fnref-126"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> + I’ t’ foxglove bells an’ t’ lime. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Chorus +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +O! Swawdill’s good for horses, an’ Wensladill for cheese,<br/> + An’ Airedill fowk are busy as a bee;<br/> + But wheersoe’er I wander,<br/> + My owd heart aye grows fonder<br/> +O Whardill, wheer I’ll lig me down an’ dee.<br/> +<br/> +Reet bonny are our dales i’ March,<br/> + When t’ curlews tak to t’ moors,<br/> +There’s ruddy buds on ivery larch,<br/> + Primroses don their floors.<br/> +But bonnier yet when t’ August sun<br/> + Leets up yon plats o’ ling;<br/> +An’ gert white fishes lowp an’ scun,<a href="#fn-127" name="fnref-127" id="fnref-127"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> + Wheer t’ weirs ower t’ watter hing.<br/> +<br/> +O! Swawdillls good...<br/> +<br/> +By ivery beck an abbey sleeps,<br/> + An’ t’ ullet is t’ owd prior.<br/> +A jackdaw thruf each windey peeps,<br/> + An’ bigs his nest i’ t’ choir.<br/> +In ivery dale a castle stands—<br/> + Sing, Clifford, Percy, Scrope!—<br/> +They threaped amang theirsels for t’ lands,<br/> + But fowt for t’ King or t’ Pope.<br/> +<br/> +O! Swawdill’s good...<br/> +<br/> +O! Eastward ho! is t’ song o’ t’ gales,<br/> + As they sweep ower fell an’ lea;<br/> +And Eastward ho! is t’ song o’ t’ dales,<br/> + That winnd frae t’ moors to t’ sea.<br/> +Coom winter frost, coom summer druft,<br/> + Their watters munnot bide;<br/> +An’ t’ rain that’s fall’n when bould winds soughed<br/> + Sal iver seawards glide.<br/> +<br/> +O! Swawdill’ 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’er her latticed casement,<br/> + The Flower of Wensleydale;<br/> +’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’s choice<br/> +Obey the summons of her voice,<br/> + And appear ’neath her oriel’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/> +’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—<br/> + Her voice was faint but clear—<br/> +“Oh! Who art thou that darest ride,<br/> +Through the aspen glade, by the river’s side,<br/> + My chamber window near?<br/> +<br/> +“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?”<br/> +<br/> +“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.”<br/> +<br/> +“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.”<br/> +<br/> +“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.”<br/> +<br/> +“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.”<br/> +<br/> +“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/> +“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.”<br/> +<br/> +“But why should a king so mighty<br/> + Pay court to a simple maid?<br/> +My father’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.”<br/> +<br/> +“No step of mine hath wandered<br/> + From the goal of my desires;<br/> +’Tis on thee my hopes are centred,<br/> + ’Tis to thee my heart aspires.<br/> +<br/> +“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’s embrace.”<br/> +<br/> +“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/> +“Unmuffle thou the mantle<br/> + That hides thee like a pall;<br/> +And let the purple trappings<br/> + From off thy shoulders fall.”<br/> +<br/> +Slowly he loosed the mantle,<br/> + And showed his face beneath.<br/> +The lights went out in the maiden’s eyes;<br/> +One swooning word she breathed to the skies:<br/> + The gaunt hills echoed “Death.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Ridings by F. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by Dave Fawthrop. + + + + + +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 + |