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