Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/237

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MINDEN HOUSE.
221

Come out, though not in me’th,
But held her breath, to hear his zong

Then, while the bird wi’ oben bill
Did warble on, her vaïce wer still;
An’ as she stood avore me, bound
In stillness to the flow’ry mound,
“The bird’s a jaÿ to zome,”
I thought, “but when he’s dum,
Her vaïce will come, wi’ sweeter sound.”

MINDEN HOUSE

’Twer when the vo’k wer out to hawl
A vield o’ haÿ a day in June,
An’ when the zun begun to vall
Toward the west in afternoon,
Woone only wer a-left behind
To bide indoors, at hwome, an’ mind
The house, an’ answer vo’k avore
The geäte or door,—young Fanny Deäne.

The air ’ithin the geärden wall
Wer deadly still, unless the bee
Did hummy by, or in the hall
The clock did ring a-hettèn dree,
An’ there, wi’ busy hands, inside
The iron ceäsement, oben’d wide,
Did zit an’ pull wi’ nimble twitch
Her tiny stitch, young Fanny Deäne.

As there she zot she heärd two blows
A-knock’d upon the rumblèn door,
An’ laid azide her work, an’ rose,
An’ walk’d out feäir, athirt the vloor;
An’ there, a-holdèn in his hand

His bridled meäre, a youth did stand,