Poetry > Ballads in the Cumberland dialect

28
CUMBERLAND BALLADS.
SALLY GRAY.
Tune—“ The mucking o’ Geordie’a lyre."
Come, Deavie, I’ll tell thee a secret,
But tou mun lock’t up i’ thee breast,
I wadden’t for aw Dalston Parish
It com to the ears o’ the rest;
Now I’ll hod te a bit of a weager,
A groat to thy tuppens I’ll lay,
Tou cannot guess whee I’s in luive wi’,
And nobbet keep off Sally Gray.
There’s Cumwhitton, Cumwhinton, Cumranton,
Cumrangen, Cumrew, and Cumcatch,
And mony mair cums i’ the county,
But nin wi’ Cumdivock can match;
It’s sae neyce to luik owre the black pasture,
Wi’ the fells abuin aw, far away—
There is nee sec pleace, nit in England,
For there lives the sweet Sally Gray!
I was sebbenteen last Collop-Monday,8
And she’s just the varra seame yage;
For ae kiss o’ the sweet lips o’ Sally,
I’d freely give up a year’s wage;
For in lang winter neets when she’s spinnin,
And singin about Jemmy Gay,
I keek by the hay-stack, and lissen,
Far fain wad I see Sally Gray.
Had tou seen her at kurk,9 man, last Sunday,
Tou coudn’t ha’e thought o’ the text;
But she sat neist to Tom o’ the Lonnin,
Tou may think that meade me quite vext;