Mother of Egypt's god- but sure, for me, Till she in haste some further hints unfold, The deep-bowl'd Gallic spoon, contrived to scoop A rule so much above the lore of Art. These tuneful lips, that thousand spoons have tried, Your full spoon, rising in a line direct, The wide-mouth'd bowl will surely catch them all. WILLIAM BARNES. BARNES, WILLIAM, an English clergyman, poet, and philologist, was born in Sturminster, in the vale of Blackmore, Dorsetshire, February 22, 1800; died at the Rectory of Came, Dorchester, October 11, 1886. His early advantages were very limited, but he succeeded in obtaining a university degree, and became one of the most scholarly men of his time. He spent several years in solicitors' offices in his native town and in Dorchester, and from 1823 to 1835 he taught school at Mere, Wiltshire, and from 1835 until 1862 at Dorchester. He received ordination from the Bishop of Salisbury, in 1847, and was given the curacy of Whitcombe, which he resigned in 1852. In 1862 he was made rector of Winterbourne Came. He then gave up his school, and for the rest of his life devoted himself to this parish. He published his first volume of poems in the Dorset dialect in 1844, and in 1846 "Poems of Rural Life" in national English. "Hwomely Rhymes," a second collection of Dorset dialect poems, was published in 1850, and in 1863 a third volume appeared. In 1879 these three volumes were published in a collected form as "Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect." He also published a number on philological subjects, among them, "A Philological Grammar;" "Tiw, or a View of the Roots and Stems of English;" "Outline of English Speech-craft;" and a "Glossary of Dorset Speech." He contributed many papers on various subjects to "Macmillan's," "Fraser's," "The Gentleman's Magazine," and other leading periodicals. THE GEÄTE A-VALLÈN TO. (From "Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect.") IN the zunsheen of our summers Wi' the hay time now a-come, Drough day sheen for how many years The geäte ha' now a-swung, And vootsteps of the young, In evenen time o' starry night And how she quickened up and smiled, To hear the trampèn hosses' steps There's moonsheen now in nights o' Fall When leaves be brown vrom green, When to the slammèn of the geäte Our Jenny's ears be keen, When the wold dog do wag his tail, As he do come in drough the geäte, THE WOODLAND HOME. (From "Poems of Rural Life in Common English.”) By fancy brought I come in thought To thee, my home, my spirit's rest. I left thy woody fields that lay So fair below my boyhood's play, The world with strife of wayward wills; |