Zummer an' Winter
by William Barnes

English philologist, folklorist and poet. He is best known for his three series of Poems of Rural Life in the Dorsetshire Dialect (1844, 1847, 1862) which were translated into standard English in 1868. Among the best of these poems are The Wife A-lost and Linden Lea. His other work of note is Philological Grammar (1854). He was a considerable influence on Thomas Hardy, also from Dorset, who published a selection of his poetry in 1908.

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Zummer an' Winter
by William Barnes

When I led by zummer streams
The pride o' Lea, as naighbours thought her,
While the zun, wi' evenen beams,
Did cast our sheades athirt the water;
Winds a-blowen,
Streams a-flowen,
Skies a-glowen,
Tokens ov my jay zoo fleeten,
Heightened it, that happy meeten.

Then, when maid an' man took pleaces,
Gay in winter's Chris'mas dances,
Showen in their merry feaces
Kindly smiles an' glisnen glances;
Stars a-winken,
Day a-shrinken,
Sheades a-zinken,
Brought anew the happy meeten,
That did meake the night too fleeten.

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Zummer an' Winter by William Barnes