Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/295

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THE WINTER’S WILLOW.
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An’ when they stood up by the chancel together,
Oh! a man mid ha’ knock’d en right down wi’ a veather,
He did veel zoo asheäm’d that he thought he would rather
He wërden the bridegroom, but only the father.
But, though ’tis so funny to zee en so shy,
Yeet his mind is so lowly, his aïms be so high,
That to do a meän deed, or to tell woone a lie,
  You’d vind that he’d shun mwore by half,
  Than to stan’ vor vo’ks fun, or their laugh.

THE WINTER’S WILLOW.

There Liddy zot bezide her cow,
 Upon her lowly seat, O;
A hood did overhang her brow,
 Her païl wer at her veet, O;
An’ she wer kind, an’ she wer feäir,
An’ she wer young, an’ free o’ ceäre;
Vew winters had a-blow’d her heäir,
 Bezide the Winter’s Willow.

She idden woone a-rear’d in town
 Where many a gaÿer lass, O,
Do trip a-smilèn up an’ down,
 So peäle wi’ smoke an’ gas, O;
But here, in yields o’ greäzèn herds,
Her väice ha’ mingled sweetest words
Wi’ evenèn cheärms o’ busy birds,
 Bezide the Winter’s Willow.

An’ when, at last, wi’ beätèn breast,
 I knock’d avore her door, O,
She ax’d me in to teäke the best
 O’ pleäces on the vloor, O;