Lucy Larcom (1826–1893)

THEY said of her, ‘She never can have felt

The sorrows that our deeper natures feel’:

They said, ‘Her placid lips have never spelt

Hard lessons taught by Pain; her eyes reveal

No passionate yearning, no perplexed appeal

To other eyes. Life and her heart have dealt

With her but lightly.’—When the Pilgrims dwelt

First on these shores, lest savage hands should steal

To precious graves with desecrating tread,

The burial-field was with the ploughshare crossed

And there the maize her silken tresses tossed.

With thanks those Pilgrims ate their bitter bread,

While peaceful harvests hid what they had lost.

—What if her smiles concealed from you her dead?