Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/233

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE YOUNG THAT DIED IN BEAUTY.
217

An’ I, in thought, can zee en dim
The seäme in feäce, the seäme in lim’.
My heäir mid whiten as the snow,
My limbs grow weak, my step wear slow,
My droopèn head mid slowly vall
Above the han’-staff’s glossy ball,
An’ yeet, vor all a wid’nèn span
Ov years, mid change a livèn man,
My little child do still appear
To me wi’ all his childhood’s gear,
’Ithout a beard upon his chin,
’Ithout a wrinkle in his skin,
A-livèn on, a child the seäme
In look, an’ sheäpe, an’ size, an’ neäme.

THE YOUNG THAT DIED IN BEAUTY.

If souls should only sheen so bright
In heaven as in e’thly light,
An’ nothèn better wer the ceäse,
How comely still, in sheäpe an’ feäce,
Would many reach thik happy pleäce,—
The hopeful souls that in their prime
Ha’ seem’d a-took avore their time—
The young that died in beauty.

But when woone’s lim’s ha’ lost their strangth
A-tweilèn drough a lifetime’s langth,
An’ over cheäks a-growèn wold
The slowly-weästen years ha’ rolled,
The deep’nèn wrinkle’s hollow vwold;
When life is ripe, then death do call
Vor less ov thought, than when do vall
On young vo’ks in their beauty.