Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/57

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THE BROOK THAT RAN BY GRAMFER’S.
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THE BROOK THAT RAN BY GRAMFER’S.

When snow-white clouds wer thin an’ vew
Avore the zummer sky o’ blue,
An’ I’d noo ho but how to vind
Zome plaÿ to entertaïn my mind;
Along the water, as did wind
 Wi’ zedgy shoal an’ hollow crook,
 How I did ramble by the brook
 That ran all down vrom gramfer’s.

A-holdèn out my line beyond
The clote-leaves, wi’ my withy wand,
How I did watch, wi’ eager look,
My zwimmèn cork, a-zunk or shook
By minnows nibblèn at my hook,
 A-thinkèn I should catch a breäce
 O’ perch, or at the least some deäce,
 A-zwimmèn down vrom gramfer’s.

Then ten good deäries wer a-ved
Along that water’s windèn bed,
An’ in the lewth o’ hills an’ wood
A half a score farm-housen stood:
But now,—count all o’m how you would,
 So many less do hold the land,—
 You’d vind but vive that still do stand,
 A-comèn down vrom gramfer’s.

There, in the midst ov all his land,
The squier’s ten-tunn’d house did stand,
Where he did meäke the water clim’
A bank, an’ sparkle under dim
Bridge arches, villèn to the brim
 His pon’, an’ leäpèn, white as snow,
 Vrom rocks a-glitt’rèn in a bow,
 An’ runnèn down to gramfer’s.