Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/431

Rh But coulden tell, as now we can, Where each would goo to tweil a man. O jaÿs a-lost, an’ jaÿs a-vound, How Providence do bring things round!

Where woonce along the sky o’ blue &emsp;The zun went roun’ his longsome bow, An’ brighten’d, to my soul, the view &emsp;About our little farm below. There I did play the merry geäme, &emsp;Wi’ childern ev’ry holitide, But coulden tell the vaïce or neäme &emsp;That time would vind to be my bride. O hwome a-left, O wife a-vound, How Providence do bring things round!

An’ when I took my manhood’s pleäce, &emsp;A husband to a wife’s true vow, I never thought by neäme or feäce &emsp;O’ childern that be round me now. An’ now they all do grow vrom small, Drough life’s feäir sheäpes to big an’ tall, I still be blind to God’s good plan, To pleäce em out as wife, or man. O thread o’ love by God unwound, How He in time do bring things round;

, aye, last evenèn, as I shook My locks ov haÿ by Leecombe brook, The yollow zun did weakly glance Upon the winter meäd askance, A-castèn out my narrow sheäde Athirt the brook, an’ on the meäd.