Welcome to the electronic edition of The Sound of William Barnes’s Dialect Poems. The book opens with the bookmark panel and you will see the contents page. Click on this anytime to return to the contents. You can also add your own bookmarks. Each chapter heading in the contents table is clickable and will take you direct to the chapter. Return using the contents link in the bookmarks. The whole document is fully searchable. Enjoy. T. L. Burton Tom Burton is an Emeritus Professor in the Discipline of English and Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide, where he taught for nearly forty years. He is the author of William Barnes’s Dialect Poems: A Pronunciation Guide (The Chaucer Studio Press, 2010), and co-editor, with K. K. Ruthven, of The Complete Poems of William Barnes, 3 volumes (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). He has spoken on Barnes at several international conferences and at more than two dozen universities in the UK, USA, and Australia, and has put on readings from Barnes’s poems at four Adelaide Fringe Festivals (2009–2012). Free audio files of T. L. Burton performing the poems in this book are available from www.adelaide.edu.au/press This book is available as a free fully-searchable PDF from www.adelaide.edu.au/press The Sound of William Barnes’s Dialect Poems 1. Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, first collection (1844) by T. L. Burton Discipline of English and Creative Writing School of Humanities and Social Sciences The University of Adelaide Published in Adelaide by University of Adelaide Press The University of Adelaide Level 1, 230 North Terrace South Australia 5005 [email protected] www.adelaide.edu.au/press The University of Adelaide Press publishes externally refereed scholarly books by staff of the University of Adelaide. It aims to maximise the accessibility to its best research by publishing works through the internet as free downloads and as high quality printed volumes on demand. Electronic Index: This book is available from the website as a downloadable PDF with fully searchable text. © 2013 T. L. Burton This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, re- search, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), no part may be re- produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission. Address all inquiries to the Director at the above address. For the full Cataloguing-in-Publication data please contact the National Library of Australia: [email protected] ISBN (paperback) 978-1-922064-48-6 ISBN (ebook) 978-1-922064-49-3 Cover illustration: Mill at Gillingham, Dorset, 1825–26 (oil on canvas), by John Constable (1776–1837) / Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA / The Bridgeman Art Library Cover design: Emma Spoehr Paperback printed by Griffin Press, South Australia CONTENTS Preface xi Abbreviations xiii Key to phonetic symbols xvii Alternative pronunciations xviii Table of common alternatives xix Introduction 1 The spelling of the 1844 collection 3 A note on the text 20 The milk-mâid o‘ the farm (a line-by-line phonemic analysis) 21 1844 Poems with phonemic transcripts Spring The Spring 32 The woodlands 36 Liady-Day an‘ ridden house 40 Easter time 46 Dock leaves 50 The blackbird 54 Woodcom‘ feäst 58 The milk-mâid o‘ the farm 62 The girt woak tree that‘s in the dell 66 Vellen the tree 70 Bringen oon gwâin o‘ Zundays 72 Evemen twilight 76 Evemen in the village 80 Mây 82 Bob the fiddler 86 Hope in Spring 88 The white road up athirt the hill 92 The woody holler 96 Jenny‘s ribbons 100 Eclogue: the ‘lotments 104 v Eclogue: A bit o‘ sly coortèn 110 Summer Evemen, an‘ mâidens out at door 118 The shepherd o‘ the farm 122 Vields in the light 126 Whitsuntide an‘ club wa‘kèn 128 Woodley 132 The brook that runn‘d by Gramfer‘s 136 Sleep did come wi‘ the dew 140 Sweet music in the wind 144 Uncle an‘ Ānt 148 Havèn oon‘s fortun a-tuold 152 Jeän‘s weddèn dae in marnen 156 Rivers don‘t gi‘e out 160 Miakèn up a miff 164 Hây-miakèn 168 Hây-carrèn 172 Eclogue: The best man in the vield 176 Wher we did kip our flagon 184 Wik‘s end in Zummer, in the wold vo‘ke‘s time 188 The meäd a-mow‘d 194 The sky a-clearèn 196 The evemen star o‘ Zummer 200 The clote 204 I got two viel‘s 208 Polly be-èn upzides wi‘ Tom 210 Be‘mi‘ster 214 Thatchèn o‘ the rick 216 Bees a-zwarmen 220 Readèn ov a headstuone 224 Zummer evemen dānce 228 Eclogue: Viairies 230 Fall Carn a-turnèn yoller 236 vi A-halèn carn 238 Harvest huome: The vust piart: the supper 242 Harvest huome: Second piart: what tha done āter supper 246 A zong ov harvest huome 250 Poll‘s jack dā 254 The ivy 258 The welshnut tree 262 Jenny out vrom huome 266 Grenley water 268 The viary veet that I da meet 272 Marnen 274 Out a-nuttèn 278 Tiakèn in apples 282 Miaple leaves be yoller 284 The weather-beäten tree 286 Shodon fiair: The vust piart 288 Shodon Fiair: The rest ō‘t 292 Martin‘s tide 296 Guy Faux‘s night 300 Night a-zettèn in 304 Eclogue : The common a-took in 308 Eclogue : Two farms in oone 314 Winter The vrost 320 A bit o‘ fun 324 Fanny‘s bethdae 328 What Dick an‘ I done 332 Grammer‘s shoes 336 Zunsheen in the Winter 340 The weepèn liady 344 The happy daes when I wer young 348 In the stillness o‘ the night 352 The settle an‘ the girt wood vire 354 The carter 358 Christmas invitation 362 vii Keepèn up o‘ Chris‘mas 366 Zittèn out the wold year 368 Woak wer good enough oonce 372 Miary-Ann‘s chile 376 Eclogue: Faether come huome 380 Eclogue: A ghost 388 Miscellaneous pieces A zong 394 The mâid var my bride 396 The huomestead 400 The farmer‘s woldest daeter 404 Uncle out o‘ debt an‘ out o‘ dannger 408 The church an‘ happy Zunday 414 The wold waggon 418 The common a-took in 422 A wold friend 426 The ruose that deck‘d her breast 428 Nanny‘s cow 432 The shep‘erd buoy 436 Hope a-left behine 440 A good faether 444 The beam in Grenley Church 446 The vâices that be gone 450 Poll 454 Looks a-know‘d avore 458 The music o‘ the dead 462 The pliace a tiale‘s a-tuold o‘ 466 Ānt‘s tantrums 470 The stuonen puorch 474 Farmers‘ sons 478 Jeän 482 The dree woaks 484 The huomestead a-vell into han‘ 488 The d‘rection Post 494 Jeän o‘ Grenley Mill 498 viii The bells of Alderburnham 502 The girt wold house o‘ mossy stuone 506 Eclogue: The times 512 A witch 528 Appendix: A summary of sections 7 and 8 of WBPG 533 Glossary 591 ix PREFACE William Barnes (1801–1886) is a brilliant lyric poet whose work has been marginalized because his best poems are written in a despised rural dialect that snooty metropolitans regard as a vehicle fit only for use by country bumpkins. But when his poems are heard read aloud in the pronunciation of his own time and region, they come to life in a remarkable way, with all their humour, their pathos, and their power. There is, however, no general consensus amongst current readers as to the pronunciation in Barnes‘s own day of the dialect in which the poems were composed. Whatever the individual merits of recordings made by current speakers of Dorset dialects, there are numerous differences in pronunciation amongst them, and none of them reproduces the dialect quite as Barnes represents it. William Barnes’s Dialect Poems: A Pronunciation Guide (2010) sets out to rediscover the pronunciation that Barnes used in his own very popular public readings of the poems in the mid nineteenth century. The guide is accompanied by a CD containing audio recordings of eighteen poems demonstrating the pronunciation recommended in the book. Why, then, is it necessary to produce a phonemic transcript and an audio recording for other poems that Barnes wrote in the dialect? If the guide does its intended job, won‘t readers be able to work out the pronunciation of any of his poems for themselves by listening to the recordings, reading the book, and putting its advice into practice? In an ideal world of scholarship that would be so. But my experi- ence with the Chaucer Studio has brought home to me with great force the breadth of the margin by which the scholarly world falls short of the ideal. Chaucer‘s pronunciation has been thoroughly documented, and it is usefully summarized in Helge Kökeritz‘s A Guide to Chaucer’s Pronunciation (1961), a handy booklet that can be found on the shelves of just about everyone who teaches Chaucer at tertiary level, and many others besides. But how many of those who teach Chaucer, and who zealously demonstrate to their students what they believe to be his pronunciation, follow Kökeritz‘s Guide with any degree of accuracy? In the course of a long teaching career, spanning many international conferences and many recordings for the Chaucer Studio, I have encountered very few scholars who can be relied on to read Chaucer with as much accuracy as verve.