Songs of the Ridings

Lile Doad

The Lord’s bin hard on me, Sir,
He’s stown my barn away.
O dowly, dowly was that neet
He stole lile Doad away!

’Twas Whissuntide we wedded,
Next Easter he was born,
Just as t’ last star i’ t’ April sky
Had faded into t’ morn.
Throstles were singin, canty,^[1]
For they’d their young i’ t’ nest;
But birds don’t know a mother’s love
That howds her barn to t’ breast.

When wark was ower i’ summer,
I nussed him on my knees;
An’ Mike browt home at lowsin’-time
Wild rasps an’ strawberries.
We used to sit on t’ door-sill
I’ t’ leet o’ t’ harvist-moon,
While our lile Doad would clench his fists
An’ suck his toes an’ croon.

But when t’ mell-sheaf^[2] was gotten,
An’ back-end days set in,
Wi’ frost at neet an’ roke^[3] by day,
His face gate pinched an’ thin.
We niver knew what ailed him,
He faded like a floor,
He faded same as skies’ll fade
When t’ sun dips into t’ moor.

Church bells on Kersmas mornin’
Rang out so merrily,
But cowd an’ dreesome were our hearts:
We knew lile Doad must dee.
He lay so still in his creddle,
An’ slowly he dwined away,
While^[4] I laid two pennies on his een
On Holy Innocents’ Day.

The Lord’s bin hard on me, Sir,
He’s stown my barn away.
O, dowly, dowly was that neet
He stole lile Doad away!

[1] Briskly.

[2] The last sheaf of the harvest.

[3] Mist.

[4] Until.