Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect/Grenley Water
GRENLEY WATER.
The sheädeless darkness o’ the night
Can never blind my mem’ry’s zight;
An’ in the storm, my fancy’s eyes
Can look upon their own blue skies.
The laggèn moon mid faïl to rise,
But when the daylight’s blue an’ green
Be gone, my fancy’s zun do sheen
At hwome at Grenley Water.
As when the work-vo’k us’d to ride
In waggon, by the hedge’s zide,
Drough evenèn sheädes that trees cast down
Vrom lofty stems athirt the groun’:
An’ in at house the mug went roun’,
While ev’ry merry man praïs’d up
The pretty maïd that vill’d his cup,
The maïd o’ Grenley Water.
There I do seem ageän to ride
The hosses to the water-zide,
An’ zee the visher fling his hook
Below the withies by the brook;
Or Fanny, wi’ her blushèn look,
Car on her païl, or come to dip
Wi’ ceäreful step, her pitcher’s lip
Down into Grenley Water.
If I’d a farm wi’ vower ploughs,
An’ vor my deäiry fifty cows;
If Grenley Water winded down
Drough two good miles o’ my own groun’;
If half ov Ashknowle Hill wer brown
Wi’ my own corn,—noo growèn pride
Should ever meäke me cast azide
The maïd o’ Grenley Water.