[4] Silent.
[5] Get ready.
One Year Older
One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
That’s what I sal awlus say.
Draw thy chair a little nearer,
Put yon stockin’s reight away.
Thou hast done enough i’ thy time,
Tewed i’ t’ house an’ wrowt at loom;
Just for once thou mun sit idle,
Feet on t’ hear’stone, fingers toom.[[1]]
One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
So I promised when we wed.
Then thy een were glest’rin’ clearer
Nor the stars aboon us spread.
If they’re dimmer now, they’re tend’rer,
An’ yon wrinkles on thy face
Tell a lesson true as t’ Bible,
Speik o’ charity an’ grace.
One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
We’ve supped sorrow, tasted joy,
But our love has grown sincerer,
Gethered strength nowt can destroy.
Love is like an oak i’ t’ forest,
Ivery yeer it adds a ring;
Love is like yon ivin tendrils,
Ivery day they closer cling.
One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
Time’s the shuttle, life’s the yarn.
Have thy crosses seemed severer
’Cause thou niver had a barn?
Mebbe I sud not have loved thee
Hauf so weel, if I mud share
All our secret thowts wi’ childer,
Twinin’ round my owd arm-chair.
One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
’Tis our gowden weddin’ day.
There sal coom no gaumless fleerer
To break in upon our play.
Look, I’ve stecked[[2]] wer door and window
Let me lap thee i’ my arms;
Hushed to-neet be ivery murmur,
While my kiss thy pale face warms.
[1] Empty.
[2] Latched.
The Hungry Forties
Thou wants my vote, young man wi’ t’ carpet-bags,
Weel, sit thee down, an’ hark what I’ve to say.
It’s noan so varry oft wer kitchen flags
Are mucked by real live lords down Yelland[[1]] way.
I’ve read thy speyks i’ t’ paper of a neet,
Thou lets a vast o’ words flow off thy tongue;
Thou’s gotten facts an’ figures, plain as t’ leet,
An’ argiments to slocken[[2]] owd an’ young.
But what are facts an’ figures ’side o’ truths
We’ve bowt wi’ childer’ tears an’ brokken lives?
An’ what are argiments o’ cockered youths
To set agean yon groans o’ caitiff[[3]] wives?
’Twere “hungry forties” when I were a lad,
An’ fowks were clemmed, an’ weak i’ t’ airm an’ brain;
We lived on demick’d[[4]] taties, bread gone sad,
An’ wakkened up o’ neets croodled[[5]] wi’ pain.
When t’ quartern loaf were raised to one and four,
We’d watter-brewis, swedes stown out o’ t’ field;
Farmers were t’ landlords’ jackals, an’ us poor
Tewed in Egyptian bondage unrepealed.
I mind them times when lads marched down our street
Wi’ penny loaves on pikes all steeped i’ blooid;
“It’s breead or blooid,” they cried. “We’ve nowt to eat;
To Hell wi’ all that taxes t’ people’s fooid.”
There was a papist duke[[6]] that com aleng
Wi’ curry powders, an’ he telled our boss
That when fowk’s bellies felt pination’s teng,[[7]]
For breead, yon stinkin’ powders they mun soss.[[8]]
I went to wark when I were eight yeer owd;
I tended galloways an’ sammed up coils.
’Twere warm i’ t’ pit, aboon ’t were despert cowd,
An’ clothes were nobbut spetches,[[9]] darns an’ hoils.
Thro’ six to eight I worked, then two mile walk
Across yon sumpy[[10]] fields to t’ kitchen door.
I’ve often fainted, face as white as chalk,
Then fall’n lang-length upon wer cobble-floor.
My mother addled seven and six a week,
Slavin’ all t’ day at Akeroyd’s weyvin’-shed:
Fayther at t’ grunstone wrowt, while he fell sick;
Steel filin’s gate intul his lungs, he said.
I come thee then no thank for all thy speyks,
Thou might as weel have spared thisen thy pains;
I see no call to laik at ducks an’ drakes
Wi’ t’ bitter truth that’s burnt intul our brains.
“Corn laws be damned,” said dad i’ forty-eight;
“Corn laws be damned,” say I i’ nineteen-five.
Tariff reform, choose, how, will have to wait
Down Yelland way, so lang as I’m alive.
If thou an’ thine sud tax us workers’ fooid,
An’ thrust us back in our owd misery,
May t’ tears o’ our deead childer thin thy blooid,
An’ t’ curse o’ t’ “hungry forties” leet on thee.
[1] Elland.
[2] Satiate.