“Then you don’t seem a-born an’ a-bred,”
I spoke up, “at a place here about;”
An’ she answer’d wi’ cheäks up so red
As a pi’ny but leäte a-come out,
“No, I liv’d wi’ my uncle that died
Back in Eäpril, an’ now I’m a-come
Here to Ham, to my mother, to bide,—
Aye, to her house to vind a new hwome,”
I’m asheämed that I wanted to know
Any mwore of her childhood or life,
But then, why should so feäir a child grow
Where noo father did bide wi’ his wife;
Then wi’ blushes of zunrisèn morn,
She replied “that it midden be known,
“Oh! they zent me awaÿ to be born,—[1]
Aye, they hid me when zome would be shown.”
Oh! it meäde me a’most teary-ey’d,
An’ I vound I a’most could ha’ groan’d—
What! so winnèn, an’ still cast a-zide—
What! so lovely, an’ not to be own’d;
Oh! a God-gift a-treated wi’ scorn,
Oh! a child that a squier should own;
An’ to zend her awaÿ to be born!—
Aye, to hide her where others be shown!
HAWTHORN DOWN.
All up the down’s cool brow
I work’d in noontide’s gleäre,
On where the slow-wheel’d plow
’D a-wore the grass half bare.
- ↑ Words once spoken to the writer.
