She is a woman: one in whom
The spring-time of her childish years
Hath never lost its fresh perfume,
Though knowing well that life hath room
40For many blights and many tears.
I love her with a love as still
As a broad river's peaceful might,
Which, by high tower and lowly mill,
Goes wandering at its own will,
45And yet doth ever flow aright.
And, on its full, deep breast serene,
Like quiet isles my duties lie;
It flows around them and between,
And makes them fresh and fair and green,
50Sweet homes wherein to live and die.
THE CHANGELING
I had a little daughter,
And she was given to me
To lead me gently backward
To the Heavenly Father's knee,
5That I, by the force of nature,
Might in some dim wise divine
The depth of his infinite patience
To this wayward soul of mine.
I know not how others saw her,
10But to me she was wholly fair,
And the light of the heaven she came from
Still lingered and gleamed in her hair;
For it was as wavy and golden,
And as many changes took,
15As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples
On the yellow bed of a brook.
To what can I liken her smiling
Upon me, her kneeling lover?
How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,
20And dimpled her wholly over,
Till her outstretched hands smiled also,
And I almost seemed to see
The very heart of her mother
Sending sun through her veins to me!
25She had been with us scarce a twelve-month,
And it hardly seemed a day,
When a troop of wandering angels
Stole my little daughter away;
Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari
30But loosed the hampering strings,
And when they had opened her cage-door,
My little bird used her wings.
But they left in her stead a changeling,
A little angel child,
35That seems like her bud in full blossom,
And smiles as she never smiled:
When I wake in the morning, I see it
Where she always used to lie,
And I feel as weak as a violet
40Alone 'neath the awful sky.