Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/44

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POEMS OF RURAL LIFE.

Eclogue.

THE ’LOTMENTS.


John and Richard.


JOHN.

Zoo you be in your groun’ then, I do zee,
A-workèn and a-zingèn lik’ a bee.
How do it answer? what d’ye think about it?
D’ye think ’tis better wi’ it than without it?
A-recknèn rent, an’ time, an’ zeed to stock it,
D’ye think that you be any thing in pocket?

RICHARD.

O’, ’tis a goodish help to woone, I’m sure o’t.
If I had not a-got it, my poor bwones
Would now ha’ eäch’d a-crackèn stwones
Upon the road; I wish I had zome mwore o’t

JOHN.

I wish the girt woones had a-got the greäce
To let out land lik’ this in ouer pleäce;
But I do fear there’ll never be nwone vor us,
An’ I can’t tell whatever we shall do:
We be a-most starvèn, an’ we’d goo
To ’merica, if we’d enough to car us

RICHARD.

Why ’twer the squire, good now! a worthy man,
That vu’st brought into ouer pleäce the plan,
He zaid he’d let a vew odd eäcres

O’ land to us poor leäb’rèn men;