Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/153

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UNCLE OUT O’ DEBT AN’ OUT O’ DANGER.
137

Her heart’s so innocent an’ kind,
She idden thoughtless, but do mind
 Her mother an’ her duty;
An’ livèn blushes, that do spread
Upon her healthy feäce o’ red,
 Do heighten all her beauty;
So quick’s a bird, so neat’s a cat,
 So cheerful in her neätur,
The best o’ maïdens to come at
 ’S a farmer’s woldest dā’ter.

UNCLE OUT O’ DEBT AN’ OUT O’ DANGER.

  Ees; uncle had thik small hwomestead,
  The leäzes an’ the bits o’ mead,
  Besides the orcha’d in his prime,
  An’ copse-wood vor the winter time.
  His wold black meäre, that draw’d his cart,
  An’ he, wer seldom long apeärt;
  Vor he work’d hard an’ païd his woy,
  An’ zung so litsom as a bwoy,
    As he toss’d an’ work’d,
    An blow’d an’ quirk’d,
  “I’m out o’ debt an’ out o’ danger,
  An’ I can feäce a friend or stranger;
I’ve a vist vor friends, an’ I’ll vind a peäir
Vor the vu’st that do meddle wi’ me or my meäre.

  His meäre’s long vlexy vetlocks grow’d
  Down roun’ her hoofs so black an’ brode;
  Her head hung low, her taïl reach’d down
  A-bobbèn nearly to the groun’.
  The cwoat that uncle mwostly wore

  Wer long behind an’ straïght avore,