Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/398

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382
POEMS OF RURAL LIFE.

Then they laid en there-right on the ground,
 On a grass-heap, a-zweltrèn wi’ het,
Wi’ his heäir all a-wetted around
 His young feäce, wi’ the big drops o’ zweat;
In his little left palm he’d a-zet,
 Wi’ his right hand, his vore-vinger’s tip,
As for zome’hat he woulden vorget,—
 Aye! zome thought that he woulden let slip.

Then they took en in hwome to his bed,
 An’ he rose vrom his pillow noo mwore,
Vor the curls on his sleek little head
 To be blown by the wind out o’ door.
Vor he died while the häy russled grey
 On the staddle so leätely begun:
Lik’ the mown-grass a-dried by the day,—
 Aye! the zwath-flow’r’s a-killed by the zun.

THE LOVE CHILD.

Where the bridge out at Woodley did stride,
 Wi’ his wide arches’ cool sheäded bow,
Up above the clear brook that did slide
 By the popples, befoam’d white as snow:
As the gilcups did quiver among
 The white deäisies, a-spread in a sheet.
There a quick-trippèn maïd come along,—
 Aye, a girl wi’ her light-steppèn veet.

An’ she cried “I do praÿ, is the road
 Out to Lincham on here, by the meäd?”
An’ “oh! ees,” I meäde answer, an’ show’d
 Her the way it would turn an’ would leäd:
“Goo along by the beech in the nook,
 Where the childern do plaÿ in the cool,
To the steppèn stwones over the brook,—
 Aye, the grey blocks o’ rock at the pool.”