When, a young mother, round my peaceful hearth
I brought those gifts which bounteous heaven had sent,
While at my door the fig-tree flung the earth
Its fruits, by hands of eager children bent—
A voice, vague, tender, swelled within my breast—
’Twas not the wild bird’s note, the cock’s shrill cry—
Nor breath of infants in their cradled rest;
Nor fishers’ chant, blent with the surge’s sigh;—
My guardian genius! Oh! the voice was thine!
’Twas thou, whose spirit mixed its song with mine!