Random Rhymes and Rambles. Bill o'th' Hoylus End

songs sung by my sire,

      Like some prophetic bard tuning the lyre?

      Sweet were the notes that he taught to the young;

      Psalms for the Sabbath on Sabbath were sung;

      And the young minstrels enraptured would come

      To the lone cottage I once called my home.

      Can I forget the dear landscape around,

      Where in my boyish days I could be found,

      Stringing my hazel-bow, roaming the wood,

      Fancying myself to be bold Robin Hood?

      Then would my mother say – where is he gone?

      I’m waiting of shuttles that he should have won:

      She in that cottage there knitting her healds,

      While I her young forester was roaming the fields.

      But the shades of the evening gather slowly around,

      The twilight it thickens and darkens the ground,

      Night’s sombre mantle is spreading the plain.

      And as I turn round to look on thee again,

      To take one fond look, one last fond adieu;

      By night’s envious hand thou art snatched from my view,

      But O, there’s no darkness, to me no decay;

      Home of my boyhood, can chase thee away.

      Ode ta Spring Sixty-four

      O welcum, young princess, thou sweetest of dawters,

         An’ furst bloomin issue o’ king sixty-four,

      Wi thi brah dekked wi gems o’ the purest o’ waters,

         Tha tells us thi sire, stern winter is ower.

      We hail thi approach wi palm-spangled banners;

         The plant an’ the sapling await thy command;

      An’ natur herseln, to show hur good manners,

         Now spreads hur green mantle all ower the plain.

      Tha appears in the orchard, the gardin, an’ grotto,

         Whare sweet vegetation anon will adorn;

      Tha smiles on the lord no more than the cottar,

         Fer thi meanest o’ subjects tha nivver did scorn.

      O hasten ta labour! ye wise, O be going!

         Theze wurds they are borne on the wing o’ the wind;

      Tha bid us be early e pleuin an’ sowing,

         Fer he o’ neglects thee tha’ll leave um behind.

      My Drechen Dear

      Night’s sombre mantle is spreading over,

         Ah, woe is me, these long tedious days;

      Why dist thou leave me, my venturous lover?

         Why did thou cross the raging seas?

      Its melancholy here I’m lying,

         Half broken-hearted, drechen dear;

      Each blast I hear, love, for thee is sighing,

         Each billow roaring a shed tear.

      How can they say that all-perfect nature

         Has nothing done or made in vain?

      When that beneath the roaring water,

         Does hideous rocks and cliffs remain.

      No eyes these rocks or cliffs discover,