Third Collection. The Castle Ruins
A happy day at Whitsuntide, As soon’s the zun begun to vall, We all stroll’d up the steep hill-zide To Meldon, girt an’ small; Out where the castle wall stood high A-mwoldrèn to the zunny sky. An’ there wi’ Jenny took a stroll Her youngest sister, Poll, so gaÿ, Bezide John Hind, ah! merry soul, An’ mid her wedlock faÿ; An’ at our zides did plaÿ an’ run My little maïd an’ smaller son. Above the beäten mwold upsprung The driven doust, a-spreadèn light, An’ on the new-leav’d thorn, a-hung, Wer wool a-quiv’rèn white; An’ corn, a sheenèn bright, did bow, On slopèn Meldon’s zunny brow. There, down the rufless wall did glow The zun upon the grassy vloor, An’ weakly-wandrèn winds did blow, Unhinder’d by a door; An’ smokeless now avore the zun Did stan’ the ivy-girded tun. My bwoy did watch the daws’ bright wings A-flappèn vrom their ivy bow’rs; My wife did watch my maïd’s light springs, Out here an’ there vor flow’rs; And John did zee noo tow’rs, the pleäce Vor him had only Polly’s feäce. An’ there, of all that pried about The walls, I overlook’d em best, An’ what o’ that? Why, I meäde out Noo mwore than all the rest: That there war woonce the nest of zome That wer a-gone avore we come. When woonce above the tun the smoke Did wreathy blue among the trees, An’ down below, the livèn vo’k, Did tweil as brisk as bees; Or zit wi’ weary knees, the while The sky wer lightless to their tweil.
William Barnes’s other poems:
