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Vields By Watervalls

By William Barnes

Topics: classic

When our downcast looks be smileless, Under others' wrongs an' slightens, When our daily deeds be guileless, An' do meet unkind requitens, You can meake us zome amends Vor wrongs o' foes, an' slights o' friends;- O flow'ry-gleaded, timber-sheaded Vields by flowen watervalls! Here be softest airs a'blowen Drough the boughs, wi'zingen drushes, Up above the streams, a-flowen Under willows, on by rushes. Here below the bright-zunned sky The dew-bespangled flow'rs do dry, In woody-zided, stream-divided Vields by flowen watervalls. Waters, wi' their giddy rollens; Breezes wi' their playsome wooens; Here do heal, in soft consolens, Hearts-a-wrung wi' man's wrong doens. Day do come to us as gay As to king ov widest sway, In deaisy-whiten'd, gil'cup-brightened Vields by flowen watervalls. Zome feair buds mid outlive blightens, Zome sweet hopes mid outlive sorrow, A'ter days of wrongs an' slightens There mid break a happy morrow. We mid have noo ea'thly love; But God's love-tokens vrom above Here mid meet us, here mid greet us, In the vields by watervalls.

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"When our downcast looks be smileless,..." by William Barnes

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

William Barnes

About William Barnes

William Barnes (1801–1886) was an English poet who wrote in Dorset dialect. His nature poems and pastoral verses celebrate rural English life with linguistic precision and deep feeling.

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