Statue of the poet William Barnes (1801-1888)

This statue is in Dorchester, at the side of a church designed by his fellow Dorset poet, Thomas Hardy.

William Barnes was a Church of England priest and also a linguist.  His Dorset poems (i e poems written in Dorset dialect), of which the best known is probably "Linden Lea", are delightful.

Just try this sample of his verse:

We Do'set, though we mid be hwomely
Be'nt asheamed to own our pleäce
An we've zome women not uncomely
Nor asheämed to show their feäce:
We've a mead or two wo'th mowen
We've an ox or two wo'th showen
In the village.
At the tillage,
Come along an’ you shall vind
That Dorset men don't sheäme their kind.

The primrwose in the sheäde do blow,
The cowslip in the zun,
The thyme upon the down do grow,
The clote where streams do run;
An’ where do pretty maidens grow
An’ blow, but where the tow'r
Do rise among the bricken tuns,
In Blackmwore by the Stour.