Mr. Barnes is not only one of the few living poets of England, but […] in one respect, he stands out, in a remarkable way, from other living English poets […]. Seldom before has the precept ‘look in thy heart and write’ been followed with such integrity and simplicity; and seldom before have rural nature and humanity in its simpler aspects been expressed in verse with fidelity so charming. We breathe the morning air while we are reading.
COVENTRY PATMORE: from a review of Barnes’s second dialect collection in Macmillan’s Magazine (June 1862)
The son of a farming family, William Barnes began writing poetry at an early age and contributed poems to a Dorchester newspaper in his teens. In 1827 he married Julia Miles, who bore him six children and was at the centre of all his love poems before and after her death in 1852 at the age of forty-seven – after which he closed each day’s diary entry with the Italian form of her name: Giulia. The elegies in dialect and standard English that he wrote when she died evoke memories of her in much the same way – minus the guilt – that Hardy’s ‘Poems of 1912’ recall his relationship with Emma Gifford. He became a schoolmaster, founded several schools, and was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Salisbury at the age of forty-eight. When his school in Dorchester began to fail, he was given a Civil List pension of £70 a year; and in 1862 he was presented with the living of Winterborne Came, near Dorchester, where he preached up to his death. Greatly admired by Tennyson, Hopkins, Patmore and Hardy, Barnes is now chiefly remembered as the Dorset dialect poet. He mastered some sixty languages and campaigned to rid English of classical and foreign influences, preferring, for example, ‘fall-time’ to ‘autumn’, ‘sun-print’ to ‘photograph’, ‘pushwainling’ to ‘perambulator’ and ‘skysill’ to ‘horizon’. His collected dialect poems appeared in 1879 as Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, and he also published poems in standard English. Despite the publication of his A Grammar and Glossary of the Dorset Dialect (1863), recent research suggests that Barnes, far from using a ‘real’ language in his dialect poems, was in fact creating a language that mixed dialect forms with his own inventions. He died on 7 October 1886 and the funeral, held four days later, inspired a tribute from Thomas Hardy in a poem, ‘The last signal’, that used several of Barnes’s metrical techniques. He was also much admired by Tennyson, who wrote a letter of condolence to Barnes’s daughter after the poet’s death: ‘Your father seems to me one of the men most to be honoured and revered in our day.’
The primrwose in the sheäde do blow,
The cowslip in the zun,
The thyme upon the down do grow,
The clote1 where streams do run;
An’ where do pretty maïdens grow
An’ blow, but where the tow’r
Do rise among the bricken tuns2,
In Blackmwore by the Stour.
If you could zee their comely gaït,
An’ pretty feäces’ smiles,
A-trippèn on so light o’ waïght3,
An’ steppèn off the stiles;
A-gwaïn to church, as bells do swing
An’ ring ’ithin the tow’r,
You’d own the pretty maïdens’ pleäce
Is Blackmwore by the Stour.
If you vrom Wimborne took your road,
To Stower or Paladore4,
An’ all the farmers’ housen show’d
Their daughters at the door;
You’d cry to bachelors at hwome –
‘Here, come: ’ithin an hour
You’ll vind ten maïdens to your mind,
In Blackmwore by the Stour.’
An’ if you look’d ’ithin their door,
To zee em in their pleäce,
A-doèn housework up avore
Their smilèn mother’s feäce;
You’d cry – ‘Why, if a man would wive
An’ thrive, ’ithout a dow’r,
Then let en look en out a wife
In Blackmwore by the Stour.’
As I upon my road did pass
A school-house back in Maÿ,
There out upon the beäten grass
Wer maïdens at their plaÿ;
An’ as the pretty souls did tweil5
An’ smile, I cried, ‘The flow’r
O’ beauty, then, is still in bud
In Blackmwore by the Stour.’
Within the woodlands, flow’ry gladed,
By the oak trees’ mossy moot2,
The shining grass blades, timber-shaded,
Now do quiver underfoot;
And birds do whistle overhead,
And water’s bubbling in its bed;
And there, for me, the apple tree
When leaves, that lately were a-springing,
Now do fade within the copse,
And painted birds do hush their singing,
Up upon the timber tops;
And brown-leaved fruit’s a-turning red,
In cloudless sunshine overhead,
With fruit for me, the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.
Let other folk make money faster
In the air of dark-room’d towns;
I don’t dread a peevish master,
Though no man may heed my frowns.
I be free to go abroad,
Or take again my homeward road
To where, for me, the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.
Barnes’s original text:
’Ithin the woodlands, flow’ry gleäded,
By the woak tree’s mossy moot,
The sheenèn grass-bleädes, timber-sheäded,
Now do quiver under voot;
An’ birds do whissle over head,
An’ water’s bubblèn in its bed,
An’ there vor me the apple tree
Do leän down low in Linden Lea.1
When leaves that leätely wer a-springèn
Now do feäde ’ithin the copse,
An’ païnted birds do hush their zingèn
Up upon the timber’s tops;
An’ brown-leav’d fruit’s a-turnèn red,
In cloudless zunsheen, over head,
Wi’ fruit vor me, the apple tree
Do leän down low in Linden Lea.
Let other vo’k meäke money vaster
In the aïr o’ dark-room’d towns,
I don’t dread a peevish meäster;
Though noo man do heed my frowns,
I be free to goo abrode,
Or teäke ageän my hwomeward road
To where, vor me, the apple tree
Do leän down low in Linden Lea.