Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/232

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Upon the pillar, all alwone,
Do stan’ the little bwoy o’ stwone;
’S a poppy bud mid linger on,
Vorseäken, when the wheat’s a-gone.
An’ there, then, wi’ his bow let slack,
An’ little quiver at his back,
Drough het an’ wet, the little chile
Vrom day to day do stan’ an’ smile.
When vu’st the light, a-risèn weak,
At break o’ day, do smite his cheäk,
Or while, at noon, the leafy bough
Do cast a sheäde a-thirt his brow,
Or when at night the warm-breath’d cows
Do sleep by moon-belighted boughs;
An’ there the while the rooks do bring
Their scroff to build their nest in Spring,
Or zwallows in the zummer day
Do cling their little huts o’ clay,
’Ithin the raïnless sheädes, below
The steadvast arches’ mossy bow.
Or when, in Fall, the woak do shed
The leaves, a-wither’d, vrom his head,
An’ western win’s, a-blowèn cool,
Do dreve em out athirt the pool,
Or Winter’s clouds do gather dark
An’ wet, wi’ raïn, the elem’s bark,
You’ll zee his pretty smile betwixt
His little sheäde-mark’d lips a-fix’d;
As there his little sheäpe do bide
Drough day an’ night, an’ time an’ tide.
An’ never change his size or dress,
Nor overgrow his prettiness.
But, oh! thik child, that we do vind
In childhood still, do call to mind
A little bwoy a-call’d by death,

Long years agoo, vrom our sad he’th;