1217 Dyen (Se more) Translated by Peter Nicholas Dale Ya hird who carked it this mornen oud on me farm? Pissback carked it – yeah, me ol’ donkey’s ded. Poor dear beast: he was, I swear, so well-bred That a queen cudda ridden him without a qualm. I was leaden him off frum the miller’s place With six hundredweight a flour packed in’a three sacks, An he’d alreddy keeled over ten times: he was slack, He was, a stumbler until he’d ged up sum pace. I’d warned him tho: ‘Don’ take anuther roll”; But the fucken pig wudn’t lissen tw’an experienced drover, An did it agen, so I thumped him wun on the poll. Well, then he made a soun’ sorda like a sneeze, Kicked his legs out, an the pardy was over. The poor barstčd! It saddened me, I tell ya. Wot stiff cheese! 9/1/2001 The sonnet is translated into "Strine", the dialect spoken in Australia down to the 1960s.
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