The Bairns are Wise Indeed

An experiment in writing in the Northumbrian dialect. email me if you have any problems understanding it.

The bairns are wise indeed.
They divint knaa the meanin' of pi
But they knaa how te use theor een.
Te gain the knowledge of a flooer,
The larnin of the sea
Aall needful things are known te them;
Wood-noise an sea-mist
Haad ne secrets.

For them the hills are only that,
Not owerladen with screamin ghosts
Drawn from oor coonty's bluddy hist'ry.
What knaa they of Flodden or of Otterburn?
Of war from baith oor neighboring countries.
An of the tears of mams
Bereft of theor sons through hist'ry.

They divint think upon injustice,
On the terrible longin for work
Never sated.
They divint hate the boasts
Of the proud and ignorint South,
Nor hate the injustice in theor words
When they proudly say "we own you".

Oh te be a bairn agyen!
Larnin the deepest lore,
The country's secrets, land an sea,
Not yet owerburdened in education
Free as the bords, powerful as the sea,
Happy te live in nature's beauty.

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