Close at her side, just where the leafy wood,
With all its summer charms of solitude,
Steps o’er the verdant edges of our lawn!
Mark their shy grace at this chaste hour of dawn!
While culling spicy birch-twigs, their cropped food
Dew-drops impearl, and morning shadows brood
O’er dells, towards which their timid feet are drawn.
Thus have I seen, within a cloister’s shade,
A widowed mother and one tender child
Close at her side; one habit on them laid;