A Farmers Wooing

 

A Farmers Wooing

A copy of one of my water-colors gives this blog a sense of time.

Ernie Slow was a celebrated poet who lived his life in New Zealand’s Mackenzie Country during the early 1900s.  Poetry could well have run in those family connections for there was a Dialect Poet and Storyteller in Wilton in England, 1841 – 1925.  What I found in writing my book ‘The Ballard of Ernie Slow’ and comparing Edward and Ernie’s work, they sketched a similar picture in rhyme.  The objective of their work was to tell a story.  For me, Edward’s writing had a delightful lilt to it.  One of Edward’s poems was about a young farmer travelling in his horse and cart to market. He comes across a young woman travelling in the same direction and offers her a lift into town.  By the time the two have reached their destination the young farmer had fallen for that young lady, hook line and sinker.

 

 A Farmer’s Wooing.

 

As to market one Tuesday in May

I saw a young lass upon the highway

And, Oh! She was dressed so bloomin’ gay

And smil’d so sweet as I bid her good day!

 

“Wo! Ho!” I said to my ratting old mare

“Just let me speak to this damsel so fair

Said I,  “are you going to yonder town here?

If so will you ride, I’ve got room to spare”

 

Then she smil’d and said.  “She would with me ride”

And soon the sweet lass sat snug by my side

Such raptures I felt as on we did glide

For I felt the fair lass would make a sweet bride

 

She admired the sweet flow’rs, which sweetly did blow

In every green field on every hedge row

But none of those flow’rs, I’d have you to know

Could vie with the lass who admired them so

 

And, O! it was sweet riding along

Beholding the flow’rs and list’ning the song

Of the linnet so sweet in the hedge rows among

And the sweet mavis so clear and so strong

 

The lassie she smil’d, and thus she did say

“O!  what a sweet time of the month of May

All nature now laughs in her mantle so gay

That with her delights I’m carried away

 

Ah, me; could I in the country but dwell

In some little cot, in some little dell

For truly my heart seems bound in a spell

With those rural scenes, I love them so well

 

Said I,  “Do you live in yon town, my lass?”

“Ah yes, it is there my life do I pass

Tho I hate it, I must endure it alas

The charms of the country what art can surpass”

 

I said,  “If these scenes such sweet hath for you

Why not bid the town for ever adieu”

She said,  “ So I would but what can I do?”

And her face became a ruddier hue

 

So wistfully then she gazed upon me

As much as to say in love he must be

So at once I confess’d my love to her free

“O charming sweet lass, I dearly love thee

 

An O!  If thou love’st a country life

Where all is so free from town’s busy strife

And would fain away from its danger so strife

Consent to become a  young farmer’s wife

 

The tears they did glisten in her soft eyes

Her bosom did heave with pure loving sighs

Then close to my breast I press’d the sweet prize

O!  How sweet charms I did idolize

 

Then I courted from that very day

And soon to the church I led her so gay

And ne’er do I regret going to market in May

When I won my sweet wife upon the highway

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope readers enjoy delving into another little segment of our history.

Please feel free to write to me.

The red line under a word indicates the language of that time.