Ceres.
Why, what is the matter now? You've a bumper harvest, men say,
The wheat and the barley show fair, and likewise the oats and the hay!
Farmer.
Thee be the goddess o' feälds? Oh, a prutty goddess tha beäst!
Seems to meä tha knaws nowt, and tha beänt na use, not the leäst.
Naw soort o' koind o' use to saäy the things that ya do!
Goddess? My owd lass Bess wur a better goddess than yew!
Sartin-sewer I be if 'tis theä and thet Clerk o' the Weather
Arranges the craps and things, ye're a pair o' toättlers together!
Ceres.
That is ungrateful, Farmer! Just glance at those golden sheaves!
Phœbus and I have done it, yet who in our love believes?
Farmer.
Luvv it ma beä, but I reckons tha'st boäth o' tha mooch to larn.
Whut good o' a full-sheäved feäld, whut good o' a full-choked barn,
If markets beänt no better, but woorse—as the chap saays here—
Than they have beän in Owd England fur well-neigh two oonderd year?
Ceres.
I am not the goddess of markets!