This to the ear is

'A daw flew by with crackling cry';

and though our poet's glossary tells us that dor = dor-hawk or nightjar,

it really is not so. A dor is a beetle so called from its making a

_dorring_ noise, and the name, like _churr_ and _burr_, is better with

its double R and trill. _Dor-hawk_ may be a name for the _nightjar_, but

properly _dorr_ is not; and if it were, it would be forbidden by _daw_

so long as it neglected its trill. Note also the misfortune that four

lines below we read

'The pigeons flaunted round his door',

where the full correct pronunciation of _door_ (d[open o][schwa]) will

not quite protect it. The whole line quoted from p. 7 is obscure,

because a nightjar would never be recognized by the description of a

bird that utters a crackling cry when flying. That it then makes a sound

different from its distinctive whirring note is recorded. T.A. Coward

writes 'when on the wing it has a soft call co-ic, and a sharper and

repeated alarm quik, quik, quik.' It is doubtful whether _crackling_ can

be accepted.

The Englishing of French Words; the Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems Society for Pure English, Tract 05 · 第 18 / 41 题