WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Farewell cover

Farewell

Chapter 20: RIDDLE CUM RUDDLE
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A varied collection of poems and short prose pieces that celebrate the Cotswold and Gloucestershire countryside while exploring love, longing, and spiritual yearning. The poems range from concise nature lyrics—observing rivers, hedges, birds, and seasonal light—to sonnets and free-verse meditations that ask for vision, joy, and fellowship. Several pieces foreground homesickness and the solace of ritual and local customs, others offer wry or reflective commentary on mortality, vanity, and daily life. Prose poems and songs intersperse formal verse, producing a sequence that alternates celebratory rural description, quiet grief, religious petition, and gentle humour.

RIDDLE CUM RUDDLE

The wains be unloaded, the ricks be in stack—
Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;
An’ varmer be merry, an’ me an’ Jack
Sing Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam.
There’s wuts for the horses and hay for the cow—
Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;
And wheat for bread, and barley for brew—
Sing Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam
Young randy lovers may praise the Spring—
Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;
But this be the time ver to dance and sing
Riddle cum Ruddle!
Riddle cum Ruddle!
Riddle cum Ruddle!
The harvest’s whoam!