This is the tenth item from Robert Dymond’s book: “Things New and Old Concerning the Parish of Widecombe-in-the-Moor and its Neighbourhood” (1876).
DART-MEET
From the Visitors’ Book at T. French’s Cottage.
A maiden fair from the West came down,
Clad in a dress of the brightest brown ;
’Twas trimmed all o’er with a silv’ry frill,
Spangled with white, like a rippling rill.
If you gazéd into her crystal eye,
With a liquid glance she passed you by,
Bounding and dancing with skippings fleet,
Swift as a Dart her lover to meet.
A dashing youth from the East drew nigh,
Dark grey was his suit, bright brown was his eye ;
His buttons were silver, sparkling bright,
The lining silk, of a glossy white.
If stared at long, or gazed on by chance,
’Twas ever the same unflinching glance;
With a leaping, bounding, merry Dart,
He tried to meet but his own sweetheart.
It was here they met one wintry morn,
Never again were their lives forlorn ;
No priest was required to make them one,
For the date of their wedding was known to none ;
The stream of their lives merrily sped,
Together they roamed where Nature led;
Their will was one, their purpose alone,
In the Sea of Love, to lose their own.
J. C.