[272]. "These Strong and Fair...."
And here is another poem by William Barnes which I have ventured to spell not as it appears in its original dialect, but in the usual way:
If souls should only shine as bright
In heaven as in earthly light,
And nothing better were the case,
How comely still, in shape and face,
Would many reach that happy place,—
The hopeful souls that in their prime,
Have seemed a-taken before their time—
The young that died in beauty.