Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/272

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POEMS OF RURAL LIFE.

The while their mother’s needle sped,
Too quick vor zight, the snow-white thread,
Unless her han’, wi’ lovèn ceäre,
Did smooth their little heads o’ heäir;

Or wi’ a sheäke, tie up anew
Vor zome wild voot, a slippèn shoe;
An’ I did leän bezide thy mound
Ageän the deäsy-dappled ground,
The while the weaken clock did tick
My hour o’ rest away too quick.
An’ call me off to work anew,
Wi’ slowly-ringèn strokes, woone, two.

Zoo let me zee noo darksome cloud
Bedim to-day thy flow’ry sh’oud,
But let en bloom on ev’ry spraÿ,
Drough all the days o’ zunny Maÿ.

THE BLACKBIRD.

’Twer out at Penley I’d a-past
A zummer day that went too vast,
An’ when the zettèn zun did spread
On western clouds a vi’ry red;
The elems’ leafy limbs wer still
Above the gravel-bedded rill,
An’ under en did warble sh’ill,
Avore the dusk, the blackbird.

An’ there, in sheädes o’ darksome yews,
Did vlee the maïdens on their tooes,
A-laughèn sh’ill wi’ merry feäce

When we did vind their hidèn pleäce.