The Castle Ruins
By William Barnes
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-mwoldren to the zunny sky.
An’ there wi’ Jenny took a stroll
Her youngest sister, Poll, so gaÿè,
Bezide John Hind, ah! merry soul,
An’ mid her wedlock faÿè;
An’ at our zides did plaÿè an’ run
My little maid an’ smaller son.
Above the beäten mwold upsprung
The driven doust, a-spreaden light,
An’ on the new-leav’d thorn, a-hung,
Wer wool a-quiv’ren white;
An’ corn, a sheenen bright, did bow,
On slopen Meldon’s zunny brow.
There, down the rufless wall did glow
The zun upon the grassy vloor,
An’ weakly-wandren 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-flappen vrom their ivy bow’rs;
My wife did watch my maid’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 wer 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 liven vo’k,
Did tweil as brisk as bees;
Or zit wi’ weary knees, the while
The sky wer lightless to their tweil.
