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Lancashire Songs

Chapter 18: GENTLE JONE.
By Edwin Waugh
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Poetry

About This Book

A collection of short songs and ballads written in a regional northern dialect that captures everyday rural and working-class life through domestic scenes, courtship, local characters, celebrations, and moments of hardship. The verse mixes humor and sentiment, employing conversational rhythms, refrains, and vivid local idiom to render communal ties, seasonal chores, and small pleasures. Arranged as brief lyric pieces, the poems alternate playful storytelling, moral reflection, and musical choruses that evoke the sounds and social routines of village life.

GENTLE JONE.

Air—“Jenny’s Bawbee.”

I seed a thowtful chap one day, His face were mild, his toppin grey; Wi’ wanderin’ fuut he went astray, Deawn yon lone. I axed a lame owd mon i’th road, To tell me what that chap were co’d; Says he, “I thowt oitch body knowed Gentle Jone.”
“Owd lad,” said I, “just look heaw ronk These daisies groo’n at th’ edge o’th bonk; Let’s keawer us deawn, an’ have a conk, Just whol noon.” He poo’d a reech o’ bacco eawt, An’ cheese an’ mouffin in a cleawt; An’ thus began to tell abeawt Gentle Jone.
Says he, “Some chaps o’ brass are fond; They’re trouble’t sore wi’ cramp i’th hond; But yon’s the fleawer ov o’ this lond,— Gentle Jone! His heart’s as true as guinea-gowd He’s good to folk at’s ill an’ owd; Childer poo’n his lap i’th fowd,— Gentle Jone!
“I’ll bet a groat he’s off to th’ vale, Just neaw, to yer some soory tale; I never knowed his kindness fail,— Gentle Jone! O’er hill, an’ cloof, an’ moss, an’ moor, He’s reet weel known to folk at’s poor, A welcome fuut at every door,— Gentle Jone!
“He taks delight i’ roving reawnd, To nooks where trouble’s mostly feawnd; He comes like rain to drufty greawnd,— Gentle Jone! He’s very slow at thinkin’ ill; Forgi’s a faut wi’ hearty will; An’ doin’ good’s his pastime still,— Gentle Jone!
“At th’ time I broke this poor owd limb, I should ha’ dee’d except for him.” He said no moor; his e’en geet dim,— Mine were th’ same. “Owd lad,” said I, “Come, have a gill!” “Naw, naw,” said he, “I’m rayther ill; It’s time to paddle deawn this hill, To th’ owd dame.”
’Twere nearly noon, i’th month o’ May; We said we’d meet some other day; An’ then th’ owd crayter limped away Deawn th’ green lone. An’ neaw, let’s do the thing that’s reet, An’ then, when death puts eawt e’r leet, We’s haply ston a chance to meet Gentle Jone!