William Barnes

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-mwoldren to the zunny sky.
 
An’ there wi’ Jenny took a stroll
   Her youngest sister, Poll, so gay,
Bezide John Hind, ah! merry soul,
   An’ mid her wedlock fay;
An’ at our zides did play an’ run
My little maid an’ smaller son.
 
Above the beaeten 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 pleaece
Vor him had only Polly’s feaece.
 
An’ there, of all that pried about
   The walls, I overlook’d em best,
An’ what o’ that? Why, I meaede 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.
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