“Take this, search, and when you’ve found it, send or fetch again the key.”
“But,” said I, “’tis lost in nature, in the sky or hills among,”
And the key back in her shanty with an angry word I flung;
For prophetic seemed her language, and my purposes were mocked,
If henceforth the heart of nature, Fate against my own had locked.
“Take it, search,” again she muttered, as I started to depart;
“And be careful how you use it; for it fits the human heart.”
In her hand I dropped a coin, and before the eye of day
Peeped from out the morning’s cradle I was far upon my way.
Like the breath of early roses, like the whisper of a bird,