Poem by William Barnes

Third Collection. The Widow’s House

I went hwome in the dead o’ the night,
 When the yields wer all empty o’ vo’k,
An’ the tuns at their cool-winded height
 Wer all dark, an’ all cwold ’ithout smoke;
An’ the heads o’ the trees that I pass’d
 Wer a-swaÿèn wi’ low-ruslèn sound,
An’ the doust wer a-whirl’d wi’ the blast,
 Aye, a smeech wi’ the wind on the ground.

Then I come by the young widow’s hatch,
 Down below the wold elem’s tall head,
But noo vinger did lift up the latch,
 Vor the vo’k wer so still as the dead;
But inside, to a tree a-meäde vast,
 Wer the childern’s light swing, a-hung low,
An’ a-rock’d by the brisk-blowèn blast,
 Aye, a-swung by the win’ to an’ fro.

Vor the childern, wi’ pillow-borne head,
 Had vorgotten their swing on the lawn,
An’ their father, asleep wi’ the dead,
 Had vorgotten his work at the dawn;
An’ their mother, a vew stilly hours,
 Had vorgotten where he sleept so sound,
Where the wind wer a-sheäkèn the flow’rs,
 Aye, the blast the feäir buds on the ground.

Oh! the moon, wi’ his peäle lighted skies,
 Have his sorrowless sleepers below.
But by day to the zun they must rise
 To their true lives o’ tweil an’ ov ho.
Then the childern wull rise to their fun,
 An’ their mother mwore sorrow to veel,
While the aïr is a-warm’d by the zun,
 Aye, the win’ by the day’s vi’ry wheel.

1. Third Collection. Tweil
2. Second Collection. Light or Sheäde
3. Third Collection. Comen Hwome
4. Second Collection. Slow to come, quick agone
5. Second Collection. The Slantèn light o’ Fall

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