Second Collection. Slow to come, quick agone
Ah! there’s a house that I do know Besouth o’ yonder trees, Where northern winds can hardly blow But in a softest breeze. An’ there woonce sounded zongs an’ teäles Vrom vaïce o’ maïd or youth, An’ sweeter than the nightèngeäle’s Above the copses lewth. How swiftly there did run the brooks, How swift war winds in flight, How swiftly to their roost the rooks Did vlee o’er head at night. Though slow did seem to us the peäce O’ comèn days a-head, That now do seem as in a reäce Wi’ aïr-birds to ha’ vled.
William Barnes’s other poems: