Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/456

440 Though leäte my evenèn tweil mid cease, An’ though my night mid lose its peäce, My life will seem to me the seäme &emsp;&emsp;&emsp;While you do sheäre &emsp;&emsp;&emsp;My daily ceäre, An’ answer to your long-call’d neäme.

Meäster Collins heärd woone day A man a-talkèn, that did zay It woulden answer to be kind, He thought, to vo’k o’ grov’lèn mind, Vor they would only teäke it wrong, That you be weak an’ they be strong. “No,” cried the goodman, “never mind, Let vo’k be thankless,—you be kind; Don’t do your good for e’thly ends At man’s own call vor man’s amends. Though souls befriended should remain As thankless as the sea vor raïn. On them the good’s a-lost ’tis true, But never can be lost to you. Look on the cool-feäced moon at night Wi’ light-vull ring, at utmost height, A-castèn down, in gleamèn strokes, His beams upon the dim-bough’d woaks, To show the cliff a-risèn steep, To show the stream a-vallèn deep, To show where windèn roads do leäd, An’ prickly thorns do ward the meäd. While sheädes o’ boughs do flutter dark Upon the woak-trees’ moon-bright bark, There in the lewth, below the hill, The nightèngeäle, wi’ ringèn bill,