Northumberland Yesterday and To-day

by Jean F. Terry

“Sair feyl’d, hinny!
Sair feyl’d now,
Sair feyl’d, hinny,
Sin’ aw ken’d thou.
Aw was young and lusty,
Aw was fair and clear;
Aw was young and lusty
Mony a lang year.
Sair feyl’d, hinny!
Sair feyl’d now;
Sair feyl’d, hinny,
Sin’ aw ken’d thou.
“When aw was young and lusty
Aw cud lowp u dyke;
But now aw’m aud and still.
Aw can hardly stop a syke.
Sair feyl’d, hinny!
Sair feyl’d now,
Sair feyl’d hinny,
Sin’ aw ken’d thou.
“When aw was five and twenty
Aw was brave an bauld.
Now at five an’ sixty
Aw’m byeth stiff an’ cauld.
Sair feyl’d, hinny!
Sair feyl’d now.
Sair feyl’d, hinny,
Sin’ aw ken’d thou”
Thus said the aud man
To the oak tree;
“Sair feyl’d is aw
Sin’ aw kenn’d thee!
Sair feyl’d, hinny!
Sair feyl’d now;
Sair feyl’d, hinny,
Sin’ aw ken’d thou.”

AW WISH YOE MUTHER WAD CUM!

“Cum, Geordy, haud the bairn,
Aw’s sure aw’ll not stop lang,
Aw’d tyek the jewl me-sel,
But really aw’s not strang.
Thor’s flooer and coals te get,
The hoose-torns thor not deun,
So haud the bairn for fairs,
Ye’re often deun’d for fun!”
Then Geordy held the bairn,
But sair agyen his will,
The poor bit thing wes gud,
But Geordy had ne skill,
He haddint its muther’s ways,
He sat both stiff an’ num,—
Before five minutes wes past
He wished its muther wad cum!
His wife had scarcely gyen,
The bairn begun te squall,
Wi’ hikin’t up an’ doon
He’d let the poor thing fall,
It waddent haud its tung,
Tho’ sum aud teun he’d hum,—
‘Jack an’ Gill went up a hill’—
“Aw wish yor muther wad cum!”
“What weary toil,” says he,
“This nursin bairns mun be,
A bit on’t’s weel eneuf,
Ay, quite eneuf for me;
Te keep a crying bairn,
It may be grand te sum,
A day’s wark’s not as bad—
Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
“Men seldom give a thowt
Te what thor wives indure,
Aw thowt she’d nowt te de
But clean the hoose, aw’s sure.
Or myek me dinner an’ tea—
It’s startin’ te chow its thumb,
The poor thing wants its tit,
Aw wish yor muther wad cum.”
What a selfish world this is,
Thor’s nowt mair se than man;
He laffs at wummin’s toil,
And winnet nurse his awn;—
It’s startin’ te cry agyen,
Aw see tuts throo its gum,
Maw little bit pet, dinnet fret,—
Aw wish yor muther wad cum.
“But kindness dis a vast.
It’s ne use gettin’ vext.
It winnet please the bairn,
Or ease a mind perplext.
At last—its gyen te sleep,
Me wife’ll not say aw’s num,
She’ll think aw’s a real gud norse,
Aw wish yor muther wud cum!”
Joe Wilson

THE AULD FISHER’S LAST WISH

The morn is grey, and green the brae, the wind is frae the wast
Before the gale the snaw-white clouds are drivin’ light and fast;
The airly sun is glintin’ forth, owre hill, and dell, and plain,
And Coquet’s streams are glitterin’, as they run frae muir to main.
At Dewshill wood the mavis sings beside her birken nest,
At Halystane the laverock springs upon his breezy quest;
Wi’ eydent e’e, aboon the craigs, the gled is high in air,
Beneath brent Brinkburn’s shadowed cliff the fox lies in his lair.
There’s joy at merry Thristlehaugh tie new-mown hay to win;
The busy bees at Todstead-shaw are bringing honey in;
The trouts they loup in ilka stream, the birds on ilka tree;
Auld Coquet-side is Coquet still—but there’s nae place for me!
My sun is set, my eyne are wet, cauld poortith now is mine;
Nae mair I’ll range by Coquet-side and thraw the gleesome line;
Nae mair I’ll see her bonnie stream in spring-bright raiment drest,
Save in the dream that stirs the heart when the weary e’e’s at rest.
Oh! were my limbs as ance they were, to jink across the green.
And were my heart as light again as sometime it has been,
And could my fortunes blink again as erst when youth was sweet,
Then Coquet—hap what might beside—we’d no be lang to meet’
Or had I but the cushat’s wing, where’er I list to flee,
And wi’ a wish, might wend my way owre hill, and dale, and lea.
’Tis there I’d fauld that weary wing, there gaze my latest gaze.
Content to see thee ance again—then sleep beside thy braes!
—Thomas Doublerday.

A SONNET.

Go, take thine angle, and with practised line.
Light as the gossamer, the current sweep;
And if thou failest in the calm, still deep,
In the rough eddy may a prize be thine.
Say thou’rt unlucky where the sunbeams shine;
Beneath the shadow, where the waters creep
Perchance the monarch of the brook shall leap—
For fate is ever better than design.
Still persevere; the giddiest breeze that blows,
For thee may blow with fame and fortune rife.
Be prosperous; and what reck if it arose
Out of some pebble with the stream at strife,
Or that the light wind dallied with the boughs?
Thou art successful.—Such is human life!
—Thomas Doubleday.

A VISION OF JOYOUS-GARDE.

“And so sir Launcelot brought sir Tristan and La Beate Isoud unto
Joyous-gard, the which was his owne castle that hee had wonne with his
owne hands.”—Malory.
“Bamburgh ... the great rock-fortress that was known to the Celts as
Dinguardi, and was to figure in Arthurian romance as Joyous Garde ...
“—C.J. Bates (History of Northumberland).
I wandered under winter stars
The lone Northumbrian shore;
And night lay deep in silence on the sea.
Save where, unceasingly,
Among the pillared scaurs
Of perilous Farnes, wild waves for ever more
Breaking in foam,
Sounded as some far strife through the star-haunted gloam.
Before me, looming through the night,
Darker than night’s sad heart,
King Ida’s castle on the sheer crag set
Waked darker sorrow yet
Within me for the light,
Beauty, and might of old loves rent apart,
Time-broken, spent,
And strewn as old dead winds among the salt-sea bent.
Till, dreaming of the glittering days,
And eves with beauty starred,
Time fell from me as some night-cloud withdrawn,
And in enchanted dawn,
All in a golden haze,
I saw the gleaming towers of Joyous Garde
In splendour rise,
Tall, pinnacled, and white to my dream-laden eyes.
While thither, as in days of old,
Launcelot homeward came,
War-wearied, and yet wearier of the strife
Of love that tore his life;
Burning, beneath the cold
Armour of steel, a never-dying flame:
The fierce desire
Consuming honour’s gold on the heart’s altar fire!
And thither in great love he brought
The fugitives of love,
Isoud and Tristram fleeing from King Mark.
One day ’twixt dark and dark
These lovers, by fate caught
In love’s bright web, dreamed with blue skies above
Of love no tide
Of wavering life may part, or death’s swift sea divide.
But Launcelot, in their bliss forlorn,
Fled from the laughter clear
Of happy lovers, and love’s silent noon;
All night beneath the moon
He strode, his spirit torn
For Guenevere! All night on Guenevere
He cried aloud
Unto the moonlit foam and every windy cloud.

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