William Barnes

Third Collection. The Love Child

Where the bridge out at Woodley did stride,
 Wi’ his wide arches’ cool sheäded bow,
Up above the clear brook that did slide
 By the popples, befoam’d white as snow:
As the gilcups did quiver among
 The white deäisies, a-spread in a sheet.
There a quick-trippèn maïd come along,—
 Aye, a girl wi’ her light-steppèn veet.

An’ she cried “I do praÿ, is the road
 Out to Lincham on here, by the meäd?”
An’ “oh! ees,” I meäde answer, an’ show’d
 Her the way it would turn an’ would leäd:
“Goo along by the beech in the nook,
 Where the childern do plaÿ in the cool,
To the steppèn stwones over the brook,—
 Aye, the grey blocks o’ rock at the pool.”

“Then you don’t seem a-born an’ a-bred,”
 I spoke up, “at a place here about;”
An’ she answer’d wi’ cheäks up so red
 As a pi’ny but leäte a-come out,
“No, I liv’d wi’ my uncle that died
 Back in Eäpril, an’ now I’m a-come
Here to Ham, to my mother, to bide,—
 Aye, to her house to vind a new hwome,”

I’m asheämed that I wanted to know
 Any mwore of her childhood or life,
But then, why should so feäir a child grow
 Where noo father did bide wi’ his wife;
Then wi’ blushes of zunrisèn morn,
 She replied “that it midden be known,
“Oh! they zent me awaÿ to be born,—
 Aye, they hid me when zome would be shown.”

Oh! it meäde me a’most teary-ey’d,
 An’ I vound I a’most could ha’ groan’d—
What! so winnèn, an’ still cast a-zide—
 What! so lovely, an’ not to be own’d;
Oh! a God-gift a-treated wi’ scorn,
 Oh! a child that a squier should own;
An’ to zend her awaÿ to be born!—
 Aye, to hide her where others be shown!