Poetry > Ballads in the Cumberland dialect

88
CUMBEBLAND BALLADS.
Thy ladder’s comin frae the croft,
A bonny hunsup, faith, he’ll met;
Put on thy clogs and auld blue brat—
Heaste, Jenny! heaste! he lifts the sneck!
Oh, monie are a mudder’s whopes,
And monie are a mudder’s fears,
And monie a bitter, bitter pang,
Beath suin and leate, her bosom bears!
August 2, 1802.
THE LASS ABUIN THIRTY.
Tune—“Jockey's Grey Brocks.”
I’ve wonder’d sin I kent mysel,
What keeps the men-fwok aw frae me;
I’s as guid-like as cousin Tib,
And she can ha’e he* choice o’ three:
For me, still moilin by mysel,
Life’s just a bitter widout sweets;
The simmer brings nae pleasant days,
And winter tires wi’ lang, lang neets.
I had some whopes o’ Wully yence,
And Wully was the only yen;
I dreamt and dreamt about him lang,
But whopes and Wully aw are geane:
A kiss he’d hev, I gev him twee,
Reet weel I mind, amang the hay;
Neist time we met, he glump’d and gloom’d,
And turn’d his head anitner way.