Modern progress, modern ruin!
March o' int'leck, march o' fooils!
All that cooms o' larnin' childer
i' their colleges an' schooils.
Eddication! Sanitation!!--
teeming brass reight down a sink;
Eddication's nowt but muckment,
sanitation's just a stink.
Childer mun have books an' picturs,
bowt at t' most expensive shops,
Teliscowps to go star-gazin',
michaelscowps to look at lops.(4)
Farmers munnot put their midden
straight afoor their kitchen door;
Once a week they're set spring-cleanin',
fettlin' up their shippen(5) floor.
Women-fowk have taen to knackin',(6)
wilent speyk their mother-tongue,
Try to talk like chaps i' t' powpit,
chicken-chisted, wake i' t' lung.
Some fowk say I'm too owd-feshioned;
mebbe, they are tellin' true:
When you've lived wi' ghosts o' Romans,
you've no call for owt that's new.
Weel I know I san't win t' vict'ry:
son's agean me, dowters, wife;
Yit I'll hold my ground bout flinchin',
feight so long as I have life.
An' if t' wick uns are agean me,
I sal feight for them that's deead--
Roman sowdiers i' their trenches,
lapped i' mail thro' foot to heead.
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