The Broken Heart
News o' grief had overteaken
Dark-eyed Fanny, now vorseaken;
There she zot, wi' breast a-heaven,
While vrom zide to zide, wi' grieven,
Vell her head, wi' tears a-creepen
Down her cheaks, in bitter weepen.
There wer still the ribbon-bow
She tied avore her hour ov woe,
An' there wer still the hans that tied it
Hangen white,
Or wringen tight,
In ceare that drowned all ceare bezide it.
When a man, wi' heartless slighten,
Mid become a maiden's blighten,
He mid cearelessly vorseake her,
But must answer to her Meaker;
He mid slight, wi' selfish blindness,
All her deeds o' loven-kindness,
God wull waigh 'em wi' the slighten
That mid be her love's requiten;
He do look on each deceiver,
He do know
What weight o' woe
Do break the heart ov ev'ry griever.
My Fore-EldersWhen from the child, that still is led
By hand, a father's hand is gone, ---
Or when a few-year'd mother dead
Has left her children growing on, ---
When men have left their children staid,
And they again have boy and maid, ---
O, can they know, as years may roll,
Their children's children, soul by soul?
If this with souls in heaven can be,
Do my fore-elders know of me?
My elders' elders, man and wife,
Were borne full early to the tomb,
With children still in childhood life
To play with butterfly or bloom.
And did they see the seasons mould
Their faces on, from young to old,
As years might bring them, turn by turn,
A time to laugh or time to mourn?
If this with souls in heaven can be,
Do my fore-elders know of me?
How fain I now would walk the floor
Within their mossy porch's bow,
Or linger by their church's door,
Or road that bore them to and fro,
Or nook where once they build their mow,
Or gateway open to their plough
(Though now indeed no gate is swung
That their live hands had ever hung ), ---
If I could know that they would see
Their child's late child, and know of me.
William Barnes (Bagber, Dorset, 1801 – 1886). Poeta y ensayista.