Linden Lea

William Barnes flourished (1800-1886) teaching and writing dialect poetry about his beloved Dorset, whence I have just returned.  A linden is a lime tree, though that tree gets no mention here, although many others do.  He loved the Dorset words - and his book of them is, apparently, about to be republished.  In the meantime, chosen partly for itself, and partly because you can read it without a dictionary, is William Barnes' Linden Lea.  It is a tender, lyrical piece, without pretension but full of the joy of a simple man in having his freedom from the thrall of the office - in some "dark room'd town". It is, of course, hopelessly romantic about the life of the rural poor, which was at least as harsh in some ways as that of their urban counterparts.

'Ithin the woodlands, flow'ry gleaded,
By the woak tree's mossy moot,
The sheenen grass-bleades, timber sheaded,
Now do quiver under voot:
An' birds do whissle auver head,
An' water's bubblen in its bed,
An' there vor me the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.

When leaves that leatley wer-a-springen
Now do feade 'ithin the copse,
An' painted birds do hush their zingen
Up upon the timber's tops:
An' brown-leav'd fruit's a-turnen red,
In cloudless zunsheen, auver head,
Wi' fruit vor me, the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.

Let other vo'k meake money vaster
In the air o'dark-room'd towns,
I don't dread a peevish measter:
Though noo man do heed my frowns.
I be free to goo abrode
Or teake agean my hwomeward road
To where, vor me, the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.

Comments

[Mr Cornflower]

Fascinating that Philip Larkin held Barnes in very high regard...and having moved from Hampshire to rural east Devon, within a day's walk of Barnes's Dorset, my ear is now more attuned to the startling accuracy of his voice. And speaking of Larkin's assessments...(see next comment on your next post)

[Cornflower]

Forsooth!

[lindsay]

No, not all! As your husband will attest, music at our school was foregone in favour of strawberry dibbing for girls and competitive dung-spurdling for the boys.

[Cornflower]

I remember this as a song. A quick check reveals the setting was by Vaughan Williams, and it was featured on the schools radio programme "Singing Together".
Did you listen to that in deepest Hampshire, Lindsay?