"Our Beth'place" by William Barnes
"Our Beth'place" by William Barnes (1801-1886)
How dear's the door a latch do shut,An' geärden that a hatch do shut,
Where vu'st° our bloomèn cheaks ha' prest first
The pillor ov our childhood's rest;
Or where, wi' little tooes°, we wore toes
The paths our fathers trod avore,
Or climb'd the timber's bark aloft,
Below the singèn lark aloft,
The while we heard the echo sound
Drough° all the ringèn valley round. Through
A lwonsome grove o' woak° did rise oak
To screen our house, where smoke did rise
A-twistèn blue, while eet° the zun yet
Did langthen on our childhood's fun;
An' there, wi' all the sheäpes an' sounds
O' life, among the timbered grounds,
The birds upon their boughs did zing,
An' milkmaids by their cows did zing,
Wi' merry sounds that softly died
A-ringèn down the valley zide.
By river banks wi' reeds a-bound,
An' sheenèn° pools wi' weeds a-bound, shining
The long-necked gander's ruddy bill
To snow-white geese did cackle sh'ill° loudly
An' stridèn peewits heästen'd by
O' tiptoes wi' their screamèn cry;
An' stalkèn cows a-lowèn loud,
An' struttèn cocks a-crowèn loud,
Did rouse the echoes up to mock
Their mingled sounds by hill an' rock.
The stars that climb'd our skies all dark,
Above our sleepèn eyes all dark,
An' zuns a-rollèn round to bring
The seasons on from spring to spring,
Ha' vled°, wi' never-restèn flight, flown
Drough green-boughed day, an' dark-tree'd night;
Till now our childhood's pleäces there
Be gay wi' other feäces there,
An' we ourselves do follow on
Our own vorelivers° dead an' gone. ancestor
Introduction
William Barnes was born in 1801 in Bagber, Dorset, England to John Barnes and Grace Scott. His father was a farmer in the Vale of Blackmore. Little is known of his early education, but he attended an endowed school in Sturminster. When he was around 13 or 14, a solicitor named Mr. Dashwood, asked if there was a student smart enough to work in his office as a clerk. Barnes eagerly accepted. He loved the country and his years when he lived and worked on the family farm, but working in an office suited him better.When he was a young man, he was tutored by a Mr. Richman, who taught Barnes all the classics and he became acquainted with many great books.
Later on, he met a woman named Julia Miles and he instantly thought that he should marry her. He wrote her many poems and a handful of them were published in the Weekly Entertained. Little by little, his writing improved. Through his work in poetry, he also tried his hand at wood engraving. In 1822, he married Julia Miles. After that, he moved to Mere where he opened a school and his love for knowledge grew. He learned Latin, Greek, French, Italian, German, and even a little Russian.
He was a very educated man. He was a poet, priest, mathematician, engraver, and inventor. He considered himself to be a linguistic purist, which means that he wanted people to use Anglo-Saxon speech, which is essentially Old English. He wrote many of his poems in the Dorset dialect.
Note on Dorset dialect
The Dorset dialect comes from the Dorset county in the West Country of England. It comes from Norse and Saxon speech. It is not commonly used anymore, but one can find examples of it in the works of William Barnes and Robert YoungThe most distinctive features of the Dorset dialect is the dropping of the "H", the glottalization, the rhoticity, and the accentuated vowel sounds. Glottalization is the closure of the glottis which is the opening between the vocal folds and rhoticity is the pronunciation of the letter "r".
Bibliography
Burton, T.L. The Sound of William Barnes's Dialect Poems. Vol. 2. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, 2017. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/31368/630158.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
Leader, Scott. The life of William Barnes, poet and philologist, by his daughter, Lucy Baxter. London: Macmillan and co., 1887. HathiTrust