If you vrom Wimborne took your road,
        To Stower or Paladore,
     An’ all the farmers’ housen show’d
        Their daughters at the door;
     You’d cry to bachelors at hwome—­
        “Here, come:  ’ithin an hour
     You’ll vind ten maidens to your mind,
        In Blackmwore by the Stour.”

     An’ if you look’d ’ithin their door,
        To zee em in their pleaece,
     A-doen housework up avore
        Their smilen mother’s feaece;
     You’d cry,—­“Why, if a man would wive
        An’ thrive, ’ithout a dow’r,
     Then let en look en out a wife
        In Blackmwore by the Stour.”

     As I upon my road did pass
        A school-house back in May,
     There out upon the beaeten grass
        Wer maidens at their play;
     An’ as the pretty souls did tweil
        An’ smile, I cried, “The flow’r
     O’ beauty, then, is still in bud
        In Blackmwore by the Stour.”

     MAY

     Come out o’ door, ’tis Spring! ’tis May! 
     The trees be green, the yields be gay;
     The weather’s warm, the winter blast,
     Wi’ all his train o’ clouds, is past;
     The zun do rise while vo’k do sleep,
     To teaeke a higher daily zweep,
     Wi’ cloudless feaece a-flingen down
     His sparklen light upon the groun’. 
     The air’s a-streamen soft,—­come drow
     The winder open; let it blow
     In drough the house, where vire, an’ door
     A-shut, kept out the cwold avore. 
     Come, let the vew dull embers die,
     An’ come below the open sky;
     An’ wear your best, vor fear the groun’
     In colors gaey mid sheaeme your gown: 
     An’ goo an’ rig wi’ me a mile
     Or two up over geaete an’ stile,
     Drough zunny parrocks that do lead,
     Wi’ crooked hedges, to the meaed,
     Where elems high, in steaetely ranks,
     Do rise vrom yollow cowslip-banks,
     An’ birds do twitter vrom the spraey
     O’ bushes deck’d wi’ snow-white maey;
     An’ gil’ cups, wi’ the deaeisy bed,
     Be under ev’ry step you tread. 
     We’ll wind up roun’ the hill, an’ look
     All down the thickly timber’d nook,
     Out where the squier’s house do show
     His gray-walled peaks up drough the row
     O’ sheaedy elems, where the rock
     Do build her nest; an’ where the brook
     Do creep along the meaeds, an’ lie
     To catch the brightness o’ the sky;
     An’ cows, in water to their knees,
     Do stan’ a-whisken off the vlees. 
     Mother o’ blossoms, and ov all
     That’s feaeir a-vield vrom Spring till Fall,
     The gookoo over white-weaev’d seas
     Do come to zing in thy green trees,
     An’ buttervlees, in giddy flight,
     Do gleaem the mwost by thy gaey light.

[Illustration:  MILKING TIME.  Photogravure from a Painting by A. Roll.]