Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/142

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126
POEMS OF RURAL LIFE.

An’ she press’d en ageän her warm bosom so tight,
 An’ she rock’d en so sorrowfully;
An’ there laid a-nestlèn the poor little bwoy,
Till his struggles grew weak, an’ his cries died awoy.

An’ the moon wer a-sheenèn down into the pleäce,
  (Under the dark elem tree),
An’ his mother could zee that his lips an’ his feäce
 Wer so white as cleän axen could be;
An’ her tongue wer a-tied an’ her still heart did zwell,
Till her senses come back wi’ the vu’st tear that vell.

Never mwore can she veel his warm feäce in her breast,
  (Under the green elem tree),
Vor his eyes be a-shut, an’ his hands be at rest,
 An’ he’s now vrom his païn a-zet free;
Vor his soul, we do know, is to heaven a-vled,
Where noo païn is a-known, an’ noo tears be a-shed.

Eclogue.

FATHER COME HWOME.


John, Wife an’ Child.


CHILD.

O mother, mother! be the teäties done?
Here’s father now a-comèn down the track.
Hes got his nitch o’ wood upon his back,
An’ such a speäker in en! I’ll be bound,
He’s long enough to reach vrom ground
Up to the top ov ouer tun;
’Tis jist the very thing vor Jack an’ I

To goo a-colepecksèn wi’, by an’ by.