Poetry > Ballads in the Cumberland dialect

46
CUMBERLAND BALLADS.
And monie a yen will watch in vain,
Wi’ painin' whopes and fears,
And oft the guilty -wretches hleame,
That set fwok by the ears.
My Cousin Tommy went to sea,
And lost his left-hand thum;
He tells sec teales about the feight,
They mek us aw sit dum;
He says it is reet fearfu’ wark,
For them that’s fworc’d to see’t—
The bullets whuzzing past yen’s lugs,
And droppen down like sleet.
But Peter, our peer sarvant man,
Was far owre proud to work,—
They said a Captain he sud be,
Alang wi’t Duke o’ York:
Wi’ powder’d heed away he march’d,
And gat a wooden leg;
But monie a time he’s rued sin seyne,
For now he’s fworc’d to beg.
Ah, but our Sally wull be fain,
Sud Lanty but cum back !
Then owre the fire, i’ -winter neets,
We wull hae monie a crack;—
He’ll tell us aw the ins and outs,
For he can write and read;
But Sally’s heart for sure ’ll brek,
If he’s amang the dead.
Oh! but I us’d to wonder much,
And think what thousands fell;
Now what they’ve aw been feightin for,
The deil a yen can tell;—