First Collection. Fall. Out a-Nuttèn
Last week, when we’d a haul’d the crops, We went a-nuttèn out in copse, Wi’ nuttèn-bags to bring hwome vull, An’ beaky nuttèn-crooks to pull The bushes down; an’ all o’s wore Wold clothes that wer in rags avore, An’ look’d, as we did skip an’ zing, Lik’ merry gipsies in a string, A-gwaïn a-nuttèn. Zoo drough the stubble, over rudge An’ vurrow, we begun to trudge; An’ Sal an’ Nan agreed to pick Along wi’ me, an’ Poll wi’ Dick; An’ they went where the wold wood, high An’ thick, did meet an’ hide the sky; But we thought we mid vind zome good Ripe nuts among the shorter wood, The best vor nuttèn. We voun’ zome bushes that did feäce The downcast zunlight’s highest pleäce, Where clusters hung so ripe an’ brown, That some slipp’d shell an’ veil to groun’. But Sal wi’ me zoo hitch’d her lag In brembles, that she coulden wag; While Poll kept clwose to Dick, an’ stole The nuts vrom’s hinder pocket-hole, While he did nutty. An’ Nanny thought she zaw a sneäke, An’ jump’d off into zome girt breäke, An’ tore the bag where she’d a-put Her sheäre, an’ shatter’d ev’ry nut. An’ out in vield we all zot roun’ A white-stemm’d woak upon the groun’, Where yollor evenèn light did strik’ Drough yollow leaves, that still wer thick In time o’ nuttèn, An’ twold ov all the luck we had Among the bushes, good an’ bad! Till all the maïdens left the bwoys, An’ skipp’d about the leäze all woys Vor musherooms, to car back zome, A treat vor father in at hwome. Zoo off we trudg’d wi’ clothes in slents An’ libbets, jis’ lik’ Jack-o’-lents, Vrom copse a-nuttèn.
William Barnes’s other poems:
- First Collection. Winter. Keepèn up o’ Chris’mas
- Third Collection. Comen Hwome
- Second Collection. Slow to come, quick agone
- Second Collection. John Bleäke at Hwome
- Third Collection. Things do Come Round
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