Page:Barnes (1879) Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect (combined).djvu/466

450 But eesterday he guided slow My downcast Jenny, vull o’ woe, An’ then my little maïd in black, A-walkèn softly on her track; An’ after he’d a-turn’d ageän, To let me goo along the leäne, He had noo little bwoy to vill His last white eärms, an’ they stood still.

good what Meäster Collins spoke O’ spite to two poor spitevul vo’k. When woone twold tother o’ the two “I be never the better vor zeèn o’ you.” If soul to soul, as Christians should, Would always try to do zome good, “How vew,” he cried, “would zee our feäce A-brighten’d up wi’ smiles o’ greäce, An’ tell us, or could tell us true, I be never the better vor zeèn o’ you.”

A man mus’ be in evil ceäse To live ’ithin a land o’ greäce, Wi’ nothèn that a soul can read O’ goodness in his word or deed; To still a breast a-heav’d wi’ sighs, Or dry the tears o’ weepèn eyes; To staÿ a vist that spite ha’ wrung, Or cool the het ov anger’s tongue: Or bless, or help, or gi’e, or lend; Or to the friendless stand a friend, An’ zoo that all could tell en true, “I be never the better vor zeèn o’ you.”