Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/293

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THE SHY MAN.
277

An’ rangle on, wi’ flutt’rèn leaves,
Below the houses’ thatchen eaves.
An’ drough a lawn a-spread avore
The windows, an’ the pworchèd door,
A path do wind ’ithin a hatch,
A-vastèn’d wi’ a clickèn latch,
An’ there up over ruf an’ tun,
Do stan’ the smooth-wall’d church o’ stwone,
Wi’ carvèd windows, thin an’ tall,
A-reachèn up the lofty wall;
An’ battlements, a-stannèn round
The tower, ninety veet vrom ground,
Vrom where a teäp’rèn speer do spring
So high’s the mornèn lark do zing.
Zoo I do zay ’tis wo’th woone’s while
To beät the doust a good six mile,
To zee the pleäce the squier plann’d
At Brookwell, now a-meäde by hand.

THE SHY MAN.

Ah! good Meäster Gwillet, that you mid ha’ know’d,
War a-bred up at Coomb, an’ went little abroad;
An’ if he got in among strangers, he velt
His poor heart in a twitter, an’ ready to melt;
Or if, by ill luck, in his rambles, he met
Wi’ zome maïdens a·titt’rèn, he burn’d wi’ a het,
That shot all drough the lim’s o’n, an’ left a cwold zweat,
  The poor little chap wer so shy,
  He wer ready to drap, an’ to die.

But at last ’twer the lot o’ the poor little man
To vall deeply in love, as the best ov us can;
An’ ’twer noo easy task vor a shy man to tell

Sich a dazzlèn feäir maïd that he loved her so well;