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| OFT have I met her | |
| In openings of the woods and pleasant ways, | |
| Where leaves beset her, | |
| And hanging branches crowned her head with bays. | |
| |
| Oft have I seen her walk | 5 |
| Through flower-deck’d fields unto the oaken pass | |
| Where knelt the chewing flock, | |
| And lambkins gambolled round her on the grass. | |
| |
| Oft have I seen her stand | |
| By wandering brooks o’er which the willows met, | 10 |
| Or where the meadow-land | |
| Balmed the soft air with dew-mist drapery wet. | |
| |
| Much patting of the wind | |
| Had bloomed her cheek with colour of the rose; | |
| Rare beauty was entwined | 15 |
| With locks and looks in movement or repose. | |
| |
| Beneath her sloping neck | |
| Her bosom-gourds swelled chastely, white as spray, | |
| Wind-tost—without a fleck— | |
| The air which heaved them was less pure than they. | 20 |
| |
| Strolling in Evening’s eye | |
| There came unto her airy laughter-chimes, | |
| Nature’s night-hymn and cry, | |
| The music of the leaves and river rhymes. | |
| |
| The floriage of Spring | 25 |
| And Summer’s coronals were hers in trust, | |
| Till came the Winter-King | |
| To droop their sweetness into native dust. | |
| |
| His sharp, embracing wind, | |
| And wavering snow, or heaped in rimy hills, | 30 |
| She loved; aye! she could bind | |
| On Fancy’s brow his charmèd icicles. | |
| |
| The dingle and the glade, | |
| The rock-ribbed wilderness, the talking trees | |
| Seemed fairer while she stayed, | 35 |
| And drank of their dim meanings and old ease. | |
| |
| For Nature craved her, nursed | |
| Her spirit at her mighty breast as one | |
| Who felt the forests’ thirst, | |
| The hunger of the mountains for the sun. | 40 |
| |
| Thoughts such as day unfolds | |
| From starry quietude and noiseless sleep; | |
| Scenes which the Fancy holds | |
| In easy thraldom in her joyous keep. | |
| |
| Visions of Duty’s height, | 45 |
| And pious legends told at dimmest eve, | |
| Came thronging, faintly bright, | |
| The habit of her inner life to weave. | |
| |
| Thus chiefly did she love | |
| To soothe the hidden ruth, the bridled tear; | 50 |
| With counsel from above, | |
| Alleviating woe, allaying fear. | |
| |
| For all alive to pain, | |
| Another’s was her own; Life’s ceaseless care, | |
| Which loads with chain on chain | 55 |
| The heavenward spirit, she was wont to share. | |
| |
| All this, and more, was hers— | |
| What the sad soul remits to God alone; | |
| What the fond heart avers | |
| In secret helplessness before His throne. | 60 |
| |
| For He who made the light, | |
| Earth and the biding stars, was all her guide. | |
| She worshipped in his sight, | |
| She joyed, she wept, she flung away her pride. | |
| |
| She thought of One who bore | 65 |
| The awful burden of the world’s despair; | |
| What could she give him more | |
| Than helpful deeds, a simple life and fair? | |
| |
| She was, and is, for still | |
| She lives and moves upon the grass-green earth, | 70 |
| And, as of old, doth fill | |
| Her heart with love, still mingling tears with mirth. | |
| |
| So wherefore cast about | |
| For sect or creed from which no rancour spreads, | |
| Since we can make her out | 75 |
| By following the peaceful path she treads? | |
| |
| Though Truth is hard to find, | |
| And blind belief is oft in error’s thrall; | |
| Though unbelief is blind, | |
| Though we who know a portion know not all— | 80 |
| |
| Yet she is self-revealed | |
| Throughout the puzzled world we wander in, | |
| And free—though unrepealed | |
| Her statutes—since she hath the power to sin. | |
| |
| For what should not be makes | 85 |
| Her life sublime by putting it to test; | |
| And in this wise awakes | |
| The evil that is in us for the best. | |
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