The Castle Ruins

A HAPPY day at Whitsuntide, As soon ’s the zun begun to vall, We all stroll’d up the steep hill-zide To Meldon, gret an’ small; Out where the Castle wall stood high A-mwoldren to the zunny sky. An’ there wi’ Jenny took a stroll Her youngest sister, Poll, so gay, Bezide John Hind, ah! merry soul, An’ mid her wedlock fay; An’ at our zides did play an’ run My little maid an’ smaller son. Above the baten mwold upsprung The driven doust, a-spreaden light, An’ on the new-leav’d thorn, a-hung, Wer wool a-quiv’ren white; An’ corn, a-sheenen bright, did bow, On slopen Meldon’s zunny brow. There, down the roofless wall did glow The zun upon the grassy vloor, An’ weakly-wandren winds did blow, Unhinder’d by a door; An’ smokeless now avore the zun Did stan’ the ivy-girded tun. My bwoy did watch the daws’ bright wings A-flappen vrom their ivy bow’rs; My wife did watch my maid’s light springs, Out here an’ there vor flow’rs; And John did zee noo tow’rs, the place Vor him had only Polly’s face. An’ there, of all that pried about The walls, I overlook’d em best, An’ what o’ that? Why, I made out Noo mwore than all the rest: That there wer woonce the nest of zome That wer a-gone avore we come. When woonce above the tun the smoke Did wreathy blue among the trees, An’ down below, the liven vo’k Did tweil as brisk as bees: Or zit wi’ weary knees, the while The sky wer lightless to their tweil