OCR Text |
Show A VILLAGER. 'fl-i's wns Jto lad handsomer than Willie was Ti.'; day that he came to father's house. There was none had an eye as soft an blue As Will ie!4 was when he came to woo. To a laboring life though bound thee be. An I on my father's ground live free, I'll take thee, I said, for thy manly grace, Thy gentle voice an thy loving face. 'Tis forty years now since wo were wed. We are ailing an gray needs not to be said, P. if WilKo'n o.ro oo a,1 cnfl As the day when he wooed me in father's croft. Yet changed am I In body an mind, For Willie to me has ne'er been kind. Merrily drinking an singing with the men, Ue 'ud come home late six nights of the ee'en. An since the children be grown an gone He 'as shunned the house an left me lone. An less an less he brings me in O' the little ho now has strength to win. Tho roof lets through the wind an the wet, An master won't mend it with us in 'sdebt. An all looks every day more worn. An the best of my gowns be shabby an torn. No wonder if words had a-grown to blows. That matters not, while nobody knows. For love him I shall to the end of life, An be, as I swore, his own true wife. An when I'm gone he'll turn an see His folly an wrong an be sorry for me, An come to me there in the land o' bliss, To five me the love I looked for in this. Iiobert Bridges. |