Poetry > Ballads in the Cumberland dialect

20
CUMBERLAND BALLADS.
Robbie he kick’d up a dust in a crack,
And sticks and neeves they went pel-mel.
The bottles forby the clock feace they brack,
But, fares-te-weel, wheyte-fit, Barbary Bell:
’Twas nobbet last week, nae langer seyne,
I wheyn’d i’ the nuik, I can’t tell how;
: ‘Get up, ” says my fadder, ‘ ‘andsarrathe sweyne!”
“I’s bravely, Bab,” says I, “how’s tou?”
Neist mworn to t’cwoals I was fworc’d to gang.
But cowp’d the cars at Tindle Fell,
For I cruin’d aw the way, as I trotted alang,
“0 that I’d never kent Barbary Bell!”
That varra seame neet up to Barbary’s house,
When aw t’auld fwok were liggin asleep,3
I off wi’ my clogs, and as whisht as a mouse,
Claver’d up to the window, and tuik a peep.
There whee sud I see, but Watty-the laird—-
Od wheyte leet on him! I munnet tell!
But to Setterday neist, if I live and be spar’d
I’ll wear a reed cwot for Barbary Bell.
Jpril l/„ 180S.
NICHOL THE NEWSMONGER.
Tune—“ The night hefore Larry was stretch’d."
Come, Nichol, and gie us thy cracks,
I seed te gang down to the smiddy:
I’ve fodder’d the naigs and the nowt,
And wanted to see thee ’at did e.