Yorkshire Lyrics: Poems Written in the Dialect as Spoken in the West Riding of Yorkshire. to Which Are Added a Selection of Fugitive Verses Not in the Dialect

A window into the soul of late Victorian Yorkshire, these poems speak in a dialect nearly lost to time. John Hartley captures the humor, heartbreak, and hard-won wisdom of West Riding folk: their struggles in the fields and factories, their quiet observations of nature, their irrepressible wit in the face of life's small tribulations. The dialect can be demanding at first, but it rewards the patient reader with something rare: an authentic working-class voice, unbowed by the literary conventions of its day. Here is a daisy blooming in March, worthy of sonnet and tears. Here is a poet's playful wrestling match with his muse. Here are ordinary people made luminous by attention. Hartley's verses don't perform sophistication; they perform life as it was actually lived, spoken, and felt. For lovers of dialect, for those curious about how the English actually sounded beyond London drawing rooms, this collection offers genuine discovery.