The Factory Girl.
Shoo stud beside her looms an’ watch’d
The shuttle passin’ through,
But yet her soul wur sumweer else,
’Twor face ta face wi’ Joe.
They saw her lips move as in speech,
Yet none cud hear a word,
An’ but fer t’grindin’ o’ the wheels,
This language might be heard.
“I’t’ spite o’ all thi treacherous art,
At length aw breeathe again;
The pityin’ stars hes tane mi part,
An’ eas’d a wretch’s pain.
An’ Oh! aw feel as fra a maze,
Mi rescued soul is free,
Aw knaw aw do not dream an daze
I’ fancied liberty.
“Extinguished nah is ivvery spark,
No love for thee remains,
Fer heart-felt love i’ vain sall strive
Ta live, when tha disdains.
No longer when thi name I hear,
Mi conscious colour flies!
No longer when thi face aw see,
Mi heart’s emotions rise.
“Catcht i’ the bird-lime’s treacherous twigs,
Ta wheer he chonc’d ta stray,
The bird his fastened feathers leaves,
Then gladly flies away.
His shatter’d wings he sooin renews,
Of traps he is aware;
Fer by experience he is wise,
An’ shuns each future snare.
“Awm speikin’ nah, an’ all mi aim
Is but ta pleeas mi mind;
An’ yet aw care not if mi words
Wi’ thee can credit find.
Ner dew I care if my decease
Sud be approved bi thee;
Or whether tha wi’ equal ease
Does tawk ageean wi’ me.
“But, yet, tha false deceivin’ man,
Tha’s lost a heart sincere;
Aw naw net which wants comfort mooast,
Or which hes t’mooast ta fear.
But awm suer a lass more fond an’ true
No lad could ivver find:
But a lad like thee is easily fun—
False, faithless, and unkind.”
Bonny Lark.
Sweetest warbler of the wood,
Rise thy soft bewitching strain,
And in pleasure’s sprightly mood,
Soar again.
With the sun’s returning beam,
First appearance from the east,
Dimpling every limpid stream,
Up from rest.
Thro’ the airy mountains stray,
Chant thy welcome songs above,
Full of sport and full of play,
Songs of love.
When the evening cloud prevails,
And the sun gives way for night,
When the shadows mark the vales,
Return thy flight.
Like the cottar or the swain,
Gentle shepherd, or the herd;
Rest thou till the morn again,
Bonny bird!
Like thee, on freedom’s airy wing,
May the poet’s rapturous spark,
Hail the first approach of spring,
Bonny lark!
Some of My Boyish Days.
Home of my boyish days, how can I call
Scenes to my memory, that did befall?
How can my trembling pen find power to tell
The grief I experienced in bidding farewell?
Can I forget the days joyously spent,
That flew on so rapidly, sweet with content?
Can I then quit thee, whose memory’s so dear,
Home of my boyish days, without one tear?
Can I look back on happy days gone by,
Without one pleasant thought, without one sigh
Ah, no! though never more these eyes may dwell
On thee, old cottage home, I love so well:
Home of my childhood! wherever I be,
Thou art the nearest and dearest to me!
Can I forget the songs sung by my sire,
Like some prophetic bard tuning the lyre?
Sweet were the notes that he taught to the young;
Psalms for the Sabbath, on Sabbath were sung;
And the young minstrels enraptured would come
To the little lone cottage I once called my home.
Can I forget the dear landscape around,
Where in my boyish days I could be found,
Stringing my hazel-bow, roaming the wood,
Fancying myself to be bold Robin Hood?
Then would my mother say—“Where is he gone?
I’m waiting for shuttles that he should have ‘wun’?”—
She in that cottage there, knitting her healds,
And I, her young forester, roaming the fields.
But the shades of the evening gather slowly around,
The twilight it thickens and darkens the ground,
Night’s sombre mantle is spreading the plain.
And as I turn round to look on thee again,
To take one fond look, one last fond adieu,
By night’s envious hand thou art snatched from my view;
But Oh! there’s no darkness—to me—no decay,
Home of my boyhood, can chase thee away!