Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect/The Lark

by William Barnes

THE LARK.

As I, below the mornèn sky,
 Wer out a workèn in the lew
O’ black-stemm’d thorns, a-springèn high,
 Avore the worold-boundèn blue,
A-reäkèn, under woak tree boughs,
The orts a-left behin’ by cows.

Above the grey-grow’d thistle rings,
 An’ deäisy-buds, the lark, in flight,
Did zing a-loft, wi’ flappèn wings,
 Tho’ mwore in heärèn than in zight;
The while my bwoys, in plaÿvul me’th.
Did run till they wer out o’ breath.

Then woone, wi’ han’-besheäded eyes,
 A-stoppèn still, as he did run,
Look’d up to zee the lark arise
 A-zingèn to the high-gone zun;
The while his brother look’d below
Vor what the groun’ mid have to show.

Zoo woone did watch above his head
 The bird his hands could never teäke;
An’ woone, below, where he did tread,
 Vound out the nest within the breäke;
But, aggs be only woonce a-vound,
An’ uncaught larks ageän mid sound.