Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect/Hawthorn Down
HAWTHORN DOWN.
All up the down’s cool brow
I work’d in noontide’s gleäre,
On where the slow-wheel’d plow
’D a-wore the grass half bare.
An’ gil’cups quiver’d quick,
As aïr did pass,
An’ deäisies huddled thick
Among the grass.
The while my eärms did swing
Wi’ work I had on hand,
The quick-wing’d lark did zing
Above the green-tree’d land,
An’ bwoys below me chafed
The dog vor fun,
An’ he, vor all they laef’d,
Did meäke em run.
The south zide o’ the hill,
My own tun-smoke rose blue,—
In North Coomb, near the mill,
My mother’s wer in view—
Where woonce her vier vor all
Ov us did burn,
As I have childern small
Round mine in turn.
An’ zoo I still wull cheer
Her life wi’ my small store,
As she do drop a tear
Bezide her lwonesome door.
The love that I do owe
Her ruf, I’ll paÿ,
An’ then zit down below
My own wi’ jaÿ.