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Bonnie Joann, and other poems cover

Bonnie Joann, and other poems

Chapter 28: THE TINKLER’S BALOO
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About This Book

The collection gathers dialect songs and lyrics rooted in Angus, depicting rural and coastal life through concise, musical poems. Seasonal labor, local customs, Hallowe’en rituals, and the coming and going of ships provide recurring settings. Voices range from wry, comic sketches of small‑town behaviour to elegiac meditations on longing, loss, and memory, often anchored by vivid natural imagery and plainspoken phrasing. Short narrative pieces and lyrical fragments alternate, and the volume closes with a couple of poems presented in standard English.

THE TINKLER’S BALOO

Haud yer whisht, my mannie,
Hide yer heid the noo,
There’s a jimp young mune i’ the branches abune
An’ she’s keekin’ at me an’ you.
Near she is to settin’,
Waukin’ she shouldna be,
An’ mebbe she sees i’ the loan by the trees
Owre muckle for you an’ me.

Dinna cry on Daddie,
Daddie’s by the fairm,
There’s a specklie hen that strays i’ the den
An’ he’s fear’d she may come to hairm.
Thieves is bauld an’ mony,
That’s what guid fowk say,
An’ they’d a’ complain gin the limmer was ta’en
An’ cheughit afore it’s day.

Sleep, an’ then, come Sawbath,
A feather o’ gray ye’ll get
Wi’ specklies on it to set i’ yer bonnet
An’ gar ye look brawer yet.
Sae hide yer heid, my mannie,
Haud yer whisht, my doo,
For we’ll hae to shift or the sun’s i’ the lift
An’ I’m singin’ baloo, baloo!