| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | VI. The Wife | | By Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1806–1893) |
| | | ALL day, like some sweet bird, content to sing | |
| In its small cage, she moveth to and fro; | |
| And ever and anon will upward spring | |
| To her sweet lips, fresh from the fount below, | |
| The murmured melody of pleasant thought, | 5 |
| Unconscious uttered, gentle-toned and low. | |
| Light household duties, evermore inwrought | |
| With placid fancies of one trusting heart | |
| That lives but in her smile, and turns | |
| From life’s cold seeming and the busy mart, | 10 |
| With tenderness, that heavenward ever yearns | |
| To be refreshed where one pure altar burns. | |
| Shut out from hence, the mockery of life, | |
| Thus liveth she content, the meek, fond, trusting wife! | | | | |
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