Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/397

This page has been validated.
THE CHILD AN’ THE MOWERS.
381

  Thik cloudless night o’ June,
Wi’ tears upon her lashes big
As raïn-drops on a slender twig,
  A-glisnèn to the moon.

Zoo don’t zit thoughtless at your cup
An’ keep your wife a-wäitèn up,
The while the clock’s a-tickèn slow
The chilly hours o’ vrost an’ snow,
Until the zinkèn candle’s light
Is out avore her drowsy sight,
  A-dimm’d wi’ grief too soon;
A-leävèn there alwone to murn
The feädèn cheäk that woonce did burn,
  A-bloomèn to the moon.

THE CHILD AN’ THE MOWERS.

O, aye! they had woone child bezide,
 An’ a finer your eyes never met,
’Twer a dear little fellow that died
 In the zummer that come wi’ such het;
By the mowers, too thoughtless in fun,
 He war then a-zent off vrom our eyes,
Vrom the light ov the dew-dryèn zun,—
 Aye! vrom days under blue-hollow’d skies.

He went out to the mowers in meäd,
 When the zun wer a-rose to his height,
An’ the men wer a-swingèn the sneäd,
 Wi’ their eärms in white sleeves, left an’ right;
An’ out there, as they rested at noon,
 O! they drench’d en vrom eäle-horns too deep,
Till his thoughts wer a-drown’d in a swoon;
 Aye! his life wer a-smother’d in sleep.